The killing of Sinaloa Cartel leader and a shootout that left nearly a dozen dead in July 2026 demonstrates an ongoing coordinated state and federal response to organized crime amid a devastating factional war within the cartel that has left thousands dead. Mexican security forces killed a high-level leader of the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel on July 7, the latest in a series of operations against the transnational criminal organization (TCO). His death came one day after a shootout between Mexican security forces and Los Chapitos assassins left one Marine dead and three wounded in another part of Sinaloa. Shortly after the ambush, government forces killed 10 cartel gunmen in El Rosario.
Mexican Army Soldiers and members of the Sinaloa Public Security Secretariat (SPSS) killed Cristhian Guadalupe Pérez Pérez, known as “El Texas” and the leader of Los Chapitos in Culiacán, the birthplace of the notorious cartel, on July 7. El Texas has been identified as orchestrating violence against the cartel’s opposing faction, Los Mayos, in Sinaloa state. El Texas’s death was confirmed by Omar García Harfuch, the secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, who said in a statement that El Texas was the “main generator of violence, related to homicides, kidnappings, extortions and vehicle theft” in the region.
The cartel leader’s demise came when he fired on Mexican Army Soldiers and SPSS Special Operations Group officers during an operation prompted by intelligence gathering from the Secretariat of National Defense. The security personnel had just arrested four armed members of the cartel faction in a parking lot of an apartment complex in north Culiacán when El Texas opened fire. The security forces shot back, killing El Texas, 36, who had headed the TCO faction since May 2025, according to a government news release.
His predecessor, Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez, alias “La Perris” or “El 27,” was killed by Mexican Army Special Forces. After El 27’s death, El Texas took control of the faction, which has engaged in a bloody battle with Los Mayos for control of Sinaloa, reported Infobae, a Latin American news site.
Along with the arrests of the four other cartel members, security forces seized a machine gun, seven assault rifles and two grenades along with large amounts of ammunition, tactical and communications equipment and two vehicles. A small amount of cocaine also was confiscated in the raid, the release stated. The operation yielded “a significant impact against the operational and logistical capabilities (of the faction),” the release stated.
The day before El Texas’s death, a Naval Infantry patrol was ambushed while on patrol in Mazatlán in Sinaloa state by Los Chapitos members who used improved explosive devices in the attack. A second clash took place in El Rosario, about 180 kilometers to the north, in which federal forces killed 10 cartel members captured three, according to Mexico News Daily.
Los Chapitos has been feuding with the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel since the July 2024 kidnapping of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Zambada was lured to the United States by a son of the Sinaloa Cartel’s most notorious leader, Joaquín Guzmán López or “El Chapo,” who already had surrendered to U.S. authorities. El Mayo also was arrested.