An internal conflict within Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s old cartel left a family of four dead, including a member of the organization, when assassins opened fire in the northern Mexico state of Sonora.
The deadly incident took place Sunday morning in the city of Guaymas when Juan Francisco ‘El Brujo’ Herrera was intercepted aboard his SUV by a group of armed men in a taxi.
Herrera, a 34-year-old member of the Sinaloa Cartel, lost control of the vehicle when he was shot and crashed into a traffic light post.
His wife Nayeli, 30, and his two-year-old daughter were rushed to a local hospital, where they were declared dead. The couple’s 12-year-old daughter died at the scene of the attack from a gunshot wound.
A 21-year-old woman identified as Joselyn Saraí, an adult male and three other children were taken to a medical facility and hospitalized for gun shot wounds.
The hit job was reportedly in response to the Saturday morning execution of Santiago Eduardo Payán in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
Homicide investigators recuperated at least 500 bullet casings.
The 26-year-old was the nephew of Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been embroiled in a power struggled with El Chapo’s three sons, Ovidio Guzmán, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, and Jesus Alfredo Guzman, who are also known as Los Chapitos, over the control of Caborca, a municipality in the state of Baja California.
His father, Genaro Payán, was an operative of the Sinaloa Cartel and was arrested by Mexican security forces in 2015. Authorities in the U.S. are seeking his extradition.
Quintero’s network had 10 of its men executed June 19 as a result of a war-like assault launched by alleged members of the Los Salazar Cartel, which is linked to Los Chapitos.
He reportedly formed an alliance with El Chapo’s sons to combat the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in November 2019
The 67-year-old, whose life is portrayed in Narcos: Mexico, co-founded the now defunct Guadalajara Cartel, for whom El Chapo once worked before splitting off.
