Tuesday, October 21, 2025

AMLO announces plans for Badiraguato, El Chapo’s hometown

President López Obrador will visit the hometown of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán tomorrow to inaugurate one government project and formally announce two more.

The president told reporters at his daily press conference that he will travel to the former Sinaloa Cartel chief’s native Badiraguato, a mountainous municipality 80 kilometers north of the Sinaloa capital Culiacán, to open a new stretch of highway that runs to Guadalupe y Calvo, a municipality in Chihuahua.

López Obrador said he will also announce the establishment of a new public university in Badiraguato that will specialize in forestry, explaining that the region has a lot of potential in the sector.

“Thirdly, the Sembrando Vida [Sowing Life] program is going to go ahead,” he added, referring to the government’s ambitious tree-planting project.

“We’re going to plant [trees] in the region, 50,000 hectares just next to Badiraguato . . .”

[wpgmza id=”150″]

López Obrador said the program will create 20,000 permanent jobs in the sierra region of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

Asked about Guzmán’s conviction on drug trafficking charges Tuesday in a New York federal court, López Obrador said yesterday that it was a lesson that a life of crime and easy money doesn’t bring happiness.

Today, he said, Badiraguato shouldn’t be stigmatized just because El Chapo grew up there.

“Towns mustn’t be stigmatized, you can’t stigmatize Atlacomulco because the so-called Atlacomulco group is from there,” López Obrador said, referring to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians, including former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who hail from the México state municipality.

“Badiraguato is a town with history, a lot of people who deserve respect live there,” he added.

The leftist political veteran, who last month said that the drug war is over and arresting drug lords is no longer a priority, explained that the aim of the new government projects and programs in Badiraguato and the country as a whole is to provide options for citizens – especially young people – to earn an honest living and not be tempted into a life of crime.

“We’re seeking to regenerate public life,” López Obrador said.

Source: Reforma (sp) 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A person doing grocery shopping at a market in Mexico

Mexican economy contracts 0.6% in September, capping weak Q3

0
An annual economic contraction in the third quarter of 2025 — as appears inevitable — would be the Mexican economy's first year-over-year decline for any quarter since Q1 of 2021.
A Pacific harbor seal

Pacific harbor seals vanishing from Baja California waters, study finds

0
A study led by the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE) observed a 61.2% population decline on the Baja California Peninsula from 2016 to 2022.
People offering each other help in a flood scenario

Japan sends aid to Mexico after fatal flooding

1
The aid package, provided through the Japan International Cooperation Agency, includes sanitary supplies that are intended for the communities hardest hit by torrential rains and flooding.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity