Mexican security forces arrested a regional leader of the Sinaloa Cartel along with a local law enforcement chief in the latest action against transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) in the government’s fight to disrupt their influence on the cartel’s home turf. The June 2026 operation resulted in the arrests of Misael Guerro Pérez, also known as “Güero Pink,” along with Hilario Javier, the former director of public security and municipal transit of Escuinapa, a town in southern Sinaloa State where the men were apprehended. Military intelligence gathered by the National Secretariat of Defense (DEFENSA) proved decisive in their capture, according to a DEFENSA news release.
The arrests involved elements of the National Guard, the Army and the Sinaloa State Security Secretariat. Security forces located the men in Isla Del Bosques, a small neighborhood near the coast, according to local media reports.
Güero Pink has been identified as a “probable” actor in the killings of 10 miners working for the Vizsla Silver company in its Panuco silver mine near Mazatlán in Sinaloa who were kidnapped in January. The men’s bodies were found in a nearby clandestine mass grave. Güero Pink was the regional chief for the “menores” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, also known as “Los Chapitos,” which have been engulfed in a bloody war with another faction of the cartel, known as “Los Mayos.” The feud began in September 2024 after a son of the cartel’s founder, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, also known as “El Chapo,” lured Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as “El Mayo,” onto a plane that delivered him to the U.S. for arrest. The factional fighting has claimed more than 3,000 lives as of May 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Güero Pink also has been linked to tourist killings in Mazatlán in January and February. Drugs, firearms, ammunition and tactical equipment were found nearby when he was arrested on June 25, the release stated. That evidence was turned over to the Sinaloa State’s Attorney General’s Office. As TCOs blockaded roads in Sinaloa after the arrests, Güero Pink was evacuated from Escuinapa by a Mexican Air Force helicopter, reported El Universal, a Mexican newspaper.
The U.S. government designated the Sinaloa Cartel as a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025. The TCO earns billions of dollars each year from drug trafficking, extortion, fuel and mineral theft, kidnapping, migrant smuggling, prostitution, and weapons and wildlife trafficking, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The criminal group is thought to have thousands of members and operates in more than 40 countries, according to the DNI. The cartel distributes large amounts of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine to the U.S. and produces fentanyl and methamphetamine by importing precursor chemicals from suppliers in India and China.
Since Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office in October 2024, the government has aggressively confronted the cartel, shutting down narcotic production labs and arresting dozens of leaders. In May, Mexican authorities destroyed three synthetic drug labs in Sinaloa, seizing more than 4,000 kilograms of methamphetamine and nearly 1,000 kilograms of other synthetic drugs. The Los Mayos faction also has been targeted with 11 suspected members killed in northern Mexico in March, including one of its leaders, Omar Oswaldo Torres, known as “El Patas.”
The recent spate of arrests and seizures continues a pattern of increasingly effective counter-TCO operations by Mexican authorities, who often are aided by U.S. intelligence. In December 2024, security forces seized more than 1,000 kilograms of fentanyl from Sinaloa Cartel labs in what then was the largest drug bust in the country’s history. Sheinbaum’s administration has overseen the detention of over 20,000 people for major crimes, and Mexico also has shipped about 100 suspected cartel drug traffickers to the U.S. since January 2025.