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The Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos” may have been involved in kidnapping 10 employees of a Canadian mining company with operations in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, according to a senior Mexican security official.
Security and Citizen Protection Secretary Omar García Harfuch said on Friday that federal and state authorities were searching for the leader of a cell that is part of the Los Chapitos faction.
The cell is known to operate in the area around the city of Concordia, which sits roughly in the central part of the state, where Vizsla Silver Corp.’s employees were abducted on Jan. 24, Harfuch said.
“The whole security cabinet is not going to stop their search,” he told a news conference in Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California, on Friday.
Vizsla Silver said it had suspended some of its activities at the site. “Focusing on the safety and safe release of our people is the absolute priority,” the company said in an emailed statement to CBC News.
The company is developing a silver and gold mining project called Panuco in Sinaloa.
The Los Chapitos faction remains loyal to the sons of now-jailed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán. Its members are fighting a war against a faction loyal to the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who once co-led the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo.
One of El Chapo’s sons betrayed Zambada in July 2024 and handed him over to U.S. authorities, sparking an ongoing civil war that’s left thousands dead and missing across the state.
The Mexican government sent 1,600 additional troops to Sinaloa on Thursday after two state-level lawmakers with the Citizens’ Movement party came under gunfire in Culiacán, the state capital.
The Sinaloa attorney general’s office told CBC News in a statement that it had opened an investigation into the kidnapping of Vizsla Silver’s employees.
The statement said the attorney general’s office received a report on the disappearance of 10 individuals on Jan. 24 in a 911 call from a company representative.
State authorities had been working with federal authorities, including the military, to launch search operations, the statement said, adding that state authorities also executed a search warrant on Tuesday as part of the investigation.
News organization Latinus reported that the company’s employees were taken from a home rented by Vizsla in Concordia by a group of armed men on Jan. 23.
Global Affairs Canada said in a statement it was aware of a “security incident” in Concordia and that it was “monitoring it closely.” It added that Canadian Embassy officials in Mexico were in touch with Mexican officials.
“We are not aware of any Canadian citizens impacted by this incident,” the statement said.
