Twelve gunmen died on a highway outside Hermosillo on Sunday, January 21, 2024, and the reason was one arrest made minutes earlier on a residential street.
Municipal police had picked up a man on Camino del Seri in the Las Minitas neighborhood. He first gave the name Isaías Valentín, with the aliases “Cardenal” or “Comanche”, according to Infobae, but officers confirmed after a first check that he was Carlos Humberto. Sonora’s state attorney’s office identified him as the son of Jesús Humberto Limón López, known as “El Chubeto” or “El Cazador”. Reuters described the father as a suspected hitman for a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Prosecutors said the son was held for “crimes against health” and gave no further detail.
The catch is how fast the other side moved. A commando group of armed men tried to free him and fired on state investigative agents, the prosecutors’ statement said. A red alert went out, officers from all three levels of government chased the convoy, and the shooting that followed ended on Highway 100, the Hermosillo-Bahía de Kino road.
The toll and the haul
The attorney’s office counted 12 attackers killed. Seven got away, and some of them were probably wounded. Two members of the state investigative agency went to hospital after the crossfire; both were later reported out of danger. A spokesperson confirmed the figure of 12 dead to Reuters.
The weapons tell the rest. Prosecutors reported 21 assault rifles of various calibers, among them Barrett, Scar, AR-15 and AK-47 models, along with a handgun, rifle magazines, tactical vests, helmets and camouflage clothing. Six late-model, high-end pickup trucks used in the clash were seized. Agents from all three levels of government kept working a rural zone west of Hermosillo for the seven who escaped.
Whose people were they
Infobae linked the gunmen, possibly, to Los Cazadores, a cell that once worked as a branch of Los Chapitos in Sonora. It reported that in November 2023 the group was said to have started operating on its own. The father was arrested in June 2021 and, per Infobae, had been one of Los Chapitos’ main operators in the state.
Infobae’s reading of the attempt is blunt: an effort of that size suggests Carlos Humberto mattered inside the organization. Follow the manpower and the arithmetic is plain. Nobody sends six expensive trucks and a stack of rifles for a nobody.
Sources
- At least 12 dead in suspected attempt to rescue son of Mexican cartel hitman (Reuters via Report)
- Enfrentamiento en Hermosillo, Sonora fue por captura del hijo de 'El Chubeto', operador de Los Chapitos – Infobae
