The 2012 Los Mochis shootout occurred in 2012 during the Mexican Drug War, when Sinaloa Cartel boss El Chapo mounted an assault on the Beltran Leyva Cartel stronghold of Los Mochis, Sinaloa in an attempt to kill their leader Fausto Isidro Meza Flores. Meza Flores escaped, but the Sinaloa Cartel recaptured its lost turf from the Beltran Levyas.
Imprisoned Beltran-Leyva boss Alfredo Beltran Leyva contacted his lieutenant Meza Flores and gave him control of the cartel and ownership of his mansion in exchange for a promise to kill El Chapo, and Meza Flores proceeded to violently take over El Chapo's turf in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, crippling his smuggling operations. El Chapo decided to retaliate by striking back at Meza Flores himself. Ismael Zambada Garcia interrogated a policeman whom Meza Flores had bribed into giving up El Chapo's Nuevo Laredo safehouses, and he discovered that Meza Flores was en route to Los Mochis; he then had the policeman executed. El Chapo bribed Governor Mario Lopez Valdez to temporarily lift the Mexican Army blockade on Los Mochis, and El Chapo and several truckloads of his hitmen - led by Manuel Alejandro Aponte Gomez - into the city to rendezvous with his local turf boss Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramirez. Together, they launched a combined assault on Meza Flores' safehouse, leading to a massive shootout in the streets in which both sides showered each other with machine-gun fire and lobbed grenades. El Chapo was told by Hoo Ramirez that the house was protected by a hill behind it, forcing the Sinaloa gunmen to attack head-on. The Beltran-Leyva gunmen turned the tide by charging on foot and on wheels, and El Chapo was shot twice through his bulletproof vest. Aponte Gomez escorted him to a car, placing him in the trunk before evacuating his boss. Ultimately, Hoo Ramirez managed things well, and the Sinaloa Cartel kept their recaptured turf, while Meza Flores escaped. That night, El Chapo was cheered by his men as he exited the trunk, as he was informed by Aponte Gomez and Hoo Ramirez that his men had been victorious despite Meza Flores's escape.