Images of the shooting that terrorized Ensenada, an area besieged by the Sinaloa Cartel

Globe Live Media, Tuesday, January 26, 2021

The lack of control in the port city of Ensenada, Baja California (on the border with the United States) last night climbed another step when a group of criminals undertook an attack against elements of the State Attorney General’s Office. One officer was killed and another was injured, as reported by the authorities.

The noise of firearms, chases and closed streets sowed chaos. Videos of citizens were immediately posted on social media in which amid the nighttime confusion and police lights rattling firearms.

The attack occurred around 6:30 p.m. on Ramírez Méndez Reforma Boulevard. Local media reported that in Arroyo Ensenada at the height of Calle Ocho y Mar the agents started a shooting. After a few minutes, the criminals fled. So far only one has been arrested.

The police officers, victims of criminals, belonged to the Tijuana Anti-Kidnapping Group. It is unknown what they were doing in Tijuana.

The crime scene is located one block from the facilities of the Ensenada Municipal Security Secretariat.

This direct attack by the drug trafficker to the security forces underscores the deep crisis of violence in which the city of 466,814 inhabitants finds itself. Ensenada is a center of economic activity and criminal gangs fight to control the sale of drugs and the increasingly lucrative branch of extortion.

The resurgence of violence in Ensenada, according to the local weekly Zeta Tijuana, is linked to the fight between criminal gangs. The medium indicates that David López Jiménez’s operators are inviting and threatening criminals in the service of Carlos Adrián Casas Reyes, alias the “Mercenary”, ringleader of Sinaloa Cartel in the Buenos Aires city.

As part of the struggles between the two criminal cells, charred, decapitated and dismembered bodies have appeared in different areas of Ensenada. At least three of these findings have taken place in the downtown area, a few meters from the building of the Municipal Public Security Directorate (DSPM) and the offices of the FGE investigation units, on Calle Novena and Espinoza.

On January 16, Zeta Tijuana reported on the discovery of a drug message, in the fence of a property located on Calle Alvarado, between Diez and Once in the Central Zone. It was the fourth narcomanta in 2021, aimed at people who commit crimes for the “Mercenary.” Along with this was found a severed head and the following message:

“This is how all the ball of jotos who work for the Mercenary will be left or they will line up or they will all screw their mother: Susi, Zuly, Sombas, China, China, Karla Axel, Simpson. Atte. Ensenada Cartel ” [sic]

During the first two weeks of the year, in Ensenada 37 intentional homicides had been perpetrated, four of these against women. This figure surpasses the total number of murders committed in January last year, which accounted for 14 executions in the same period.