Violence has spiked in the northern state of Sinaloa in recent days, as organized crime responds to the recent arrests of alleged Sinaloa Cartel leaders Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López.

Ten homicides in the state on Friday and Saturday are linked to organized crime, Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya told a press conference on Monday.

There were two more murders in the northern state on Sunday, but they weren’t immediately linked to cartel activity.

“On Saturday there were six [murders] and on Friday there were four. These 10 murders have to do with organized crime groups,” Rocha said.

Among the homicide victims was Martín García Corrales, an accused fentanyl trafficker and alleged “close associate” of Zambada, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera and “Los Chapitos,” as El Chapo’s sons are known.

His body, and those of two other men including García’s brother José Ricardo, were found in the municipality of Elota on Saturday.

Earlier last week, an alleged gunman for Zambada known as “El Vampi” and another man nicknamed “Tocino” (Bacon) were murdered in Culiacán.

A faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by El Mayo and another headed up by Los Chapitos have been involved in a dispute for years.

Rocha said that the current situation in the state is concerning and didn’t rule out an escalation of violence in the coming days. Authorities are alert to that possibility, he said.

The recent outbreak of violence comes after Zambada and Guzmán López were arrested in the United States on July 25.

Zambada claims he was kidnapped by Guzmán López and his associates, forced onto a private plane and flown to an airport near El Paso, Texas, against his will. He alleges his kidnapping occurred outside the city of Culiacán after he was lured by Guzmán López to a supposed meeting between Governor Rocha and former Culiacán mayor Héctor Cuén, who was murdered on July 25.

Rocha has denied any knowledge of the meeting, and highlighted that he traveled to Los Angeles that day.

Feds beef up security 

The federal government dispatched an additional 600 troops to Sinaloa in the wake of the recent homicides. They are mainly deployed to Culiacán and surrounding areas.

The Reforma newspaper reported that the strong presence of soldiers in Culiacán on Monday reminded residents of the deployment of troops to the city in October 2019 after the so-called Culiacanazo — a wave of cartel attacks in response to the capture of Ovidio Guzmán López — one of Los Chapitos — who was released by federal authorities amid the mayhem.

The additional 600 troops join 400 soldiers who were deployed to Sinaloa in the days after the arrests of Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López.

Before the two men were taken into U.S. custody, there were already some 2,800 soldiers deployed to Sinaloa, though these have mainly been involved in activities such as the detection and dismantling of clandestine drug labs and natural disaster response.

Rocha said Monday that “the army knows where the hotspots are” and is acting accordingly.

“They have a strategy that I believe is adequate,” the governor said.

With reports from Reforma, Excélsior, Aristegui Noticias and Zeta Tijuana