On Monday, authorities discovered four headless bodies hanging from a bridge in the capital of Sinaloa state in western Mexico. This grim find is part of a wave of cartel-related violence that claimed 20 lives in less than 24 hours.

A brutal power struggle between two factions of the influential Sinaloa Cartel has transformed Culiacan into a hub of cartel violence. This ongoing conflict between Los Chapitos and La Mayiza has been escalating since it erupted last year.

In Culiacan, dead bodies frequently litter the streets, houses bear bullet holes, businesses are forced to shut down, and schools often close amidst intense violence. Masked young men on motorcycles patrol the city’s main streets.

Los Chapitos, led by the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, have reportedly become so desperate to win the internal civil war that it has allied with long-time rival Jalisco New Generation Cartel. 

On Monday, Sinaloa state prosecutors said that four bodies were found dangling from the freeway bridge leading out of the city, their heads in a nearby plastic bag.

On the same highway, officials said they found 16 more male victims with gunshot wounds, packed into a white van, one of whom was decapitated. 

Authorities said the bodies were left with a note, apparently from one of the cartel factions. 

While little of the note’s contents was coherent, the author of the note chillingly wrote: ‘WELCOME TO THE NEW SINALOA.’ 

Feliciano Castro, Sinaloa government spokesperson, condemned the violent killings on Monday and said authorities needed to examine their strategy for tackling organized crime with the ‘magnitude’ of the violence seen.

‘Military and police forces are working together to reestablish total peace in Sinaloa,’ Castro said.

Most in the western Mexico state, however, say authorities have lost control of the violence levels.

A bloody power struggle erupted in September last year between two rival factions, pushing the city to a standstill.

The war for territorial control was triggered by the dramatic kidnapping of the leader of one of the groups by a son of notorious capo Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán who then delivered him to US authorities via a private plane.

Since then, intense fighting between the heavily armed factions has become the new normal for civilians in Culiacan, a city which for years avoided the worst of Mexico’s violence in large part because the Sinaloa Cartel maintained such complete control.

The New York Times reported that the factional war has forced El Chapo’s sons to ally with its adversary, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. 

Los Chapitos have reportedly agreed to hand over swathes of its territory in exchange for money and weapons, which it is burning through in its fight against La Mayiza. 

One high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel said Los Chapitos were in desperate need of funds. 

‘Los Chapitos were gasping for air, they couldn’t take the pressure anymore,’ he said. ‘Imagine how many millions you burn through in a war every day: the fighters, the weapons, the vehicles. The pressure mounted little by little.’

The risky trade could severely hamper the Sinaloa Cartel’s ability to traffic drugs, as control over territory is crucial to secure routes from production to distribution sites. 

Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on nonstate armed groups at the Brookings Institution, told the American newspaper: ‘It’s like if the eastern coast of the US seceded during the Cold War and reached out to the Soviet Union. 

‘This has global implications for how the conflict will unfold and how criminal markets will reorganise.’