For more than two years, the war between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel has resulted in over 4,000 homicides and 4,500 disappearances in the state—which has a population of just over 3 million—according to data from the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office.
The conflict has unleashed brutal violence, characterized by the use of improvised explosive devices dropped from drones, dismembered bodies left on public streets, and the burning of homes and businesses. To sustain this battle, the warring groups have expanded their recruitment networks into other states, luring adolescents and young adults with fake job offers and promises of high wages.
Some are recruited through deception, while others are told the truth. They are subsequently taken to training camps and deployed to the front lines. While the true number of young people and minors recruited in Mexico remains unknown, this journalistic investigation has documented an increase in the number of individuals from outside the state who have gone missing in Sinaloa since September 2024—the very moment the violence erupted.
The number of such cases rose from 142 in 2023 to 208 in 2024, reaching 231 reports in 2025—a 63% increase compared to the year before the conflict began. Between September 2024 and June 2026, amid the cartel’s internal war, the number of people who went missing in Sinaloa reached 536; this figure accounts for more than half of all cases recorded over the preceding five-year period, from 2019 to 2023.
According to testimonies from victims and experts, the rise in disappearances aligns with a strategy of forced recruitment employed by criminal groups to sustain the war. Based on their accounts, it was possible to reconstruct two recruitment routes connecting the states of Jalisco and Durango to Sinaloa. Durango, Jalisco, Sonora, and Chihuahua account for 44% of the individuals—originally from other states—who were reported missing in Sinaloa.
