Historica Wiki
Advertisement
Los Chimalis

Los Chimalis were an armed group of the Sinaloa Cartel's Chapitos faction that served as one of the main security and hitmen squads for the aforementioned contingent in and around the city of Culiacan. Its founder and leader was prolific Cartel security chief Francisco Javier "El Pancho Chimal" Zazueta Rosales, who began working for the Guzman brothers in 2014 and quickly organized manpower to support his criminal base and the protection of his bosses, and Los Chimalis turned into some of the biggest generators of violence in the state. They operated south of the capital as well as in the municipalities of Navolato and Badiraguato. In 2016, the group was responsible for a coordinated attack by order of Zazueta on a unit of the Mexican military to rescue traffickers Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega, in the process of which five officers were killed and another ten were gravely injured. This resulted in a crackdown on the group and other Sinaloa Cartel factions, and by the following year, Zazueta was imprisoned, escaped from incarceration and was killed in a shootout in San Cayetano. The group then came under the supervision of Ivan Archivaldo Guzman's lieutenant Jose Angel Canobbio Inzunza, who led it through heavy fighting into the war with the Zambada faction in 2024.

Advertisement