Heavily armed squads from the Sinaloa Cartel have sown terror among ranch owners located in the Valle de las Palmas district within the municipality of Tecate. This criminal onslaught is being orchestrated from Tijuana.
In one instance, a ranch owner was murdered; in another robbery, a resident was shot inside her family home in El Testerazo. The woman is an employee of the Federal Attorney General’s Office.
The attacks, identified by state security agencies, began on January 8, 2026; it was not until March 18 that the first arrests were reported.
Over a two-month period, these criminal groups have employed the same *modus operandi* at at least five ranches: typically, in the early hours of the morning, they violently force their way onto properties—battering down doors in the process—subdue residents and owners by binding their hands and feet, beat them, and rob them—primarily stealing pickup trucks.
The most recent attack occurred in the early hours of Monday, March 16, at 2:54 a.m. A woman called the emergency line to report that four hooded men dressed in black and armed with long guns had violently burst into her home in the town of El Testerazo, Tecate; they headed directly toward her daughter, shot her, and fled the scene, taking a pickup truck with them.
The caller was the mother of Karina, a 29-year-old woman who works as a Ministerial Assistant at the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) in Ensenada—the same office from which the current federal prosecutor for Baja California, Teófila González Lozada, hails.
When questioned, Karina’s colleagues stated they were unaware of any motive for the attack. “She doesn’t have any enemies—seriously; she does her job well,” they asserted. “She started doing her mandatory public service there while she was still in school [in Tijuana], and afterward, she stayed on as a permanent employee and was transferred to Ensenada.” Authorities stated that the injured young woman, her mother, and an aunt do not reside at the home where they were attacked, but had decided to spend the holiday there.
According to surveillance footage, the intruders gained entry by kicking in the door; witnesses reported that they shot the young woman, and the cameras captured the perpetrators as they exited—at which point they attempted to open a vehicle parked at the garage entrance: a 2024 Kia belonging to the young woman.
