Five Rehabilitation Centers in Culiacan Shut Down After 'Chapitos' Cartel Attack Leaves 14 Dead

Less than a week after suspected members of "Los Chapitos" faction of the Sinaloa Cartel stormed a rehabilitation center in Culiacán, killing nine people, five such centers in the city have closed due to fears of suffering similar attacks.

According to local outlets, the closures have left nearly 270 patients without treatment. The ongoing violence against rehab centers is tied to turf wars between two Sinaloa cartel factions: "Los Chapitos" and "La Mayiza," which have terrorized the region since September 2024.

For months, drug cartels in Sinaloa's capital have been using rehabilitation centers to recruit new members. There were reported cases in which patients were offered "job opportunities" if they joined either faction.

But the situation escalated last week when a group of alleged members of "Los Chapitos" attacked the Shaddai Rehab Center, leaving nine people dead and five others injured. According to Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, the attack took place during the early hours of April 7, when a group of armed men broke into the property and started to shoot at residents of the rehab center.

Rocha Moya said that, before they opened fire, they asked people if they were part of another criminal group. Guillermo Rodríguez Gaxiola, owner of the Shaddai Rehab Center and leader of the Union of Rehabilitation Center Networks in the state, was kidnapped inside his home and was later killed by alleged members of "Los Chapitos" at a different location, taking the death toll to 10.

In the last 48 hours, four other rehab center executives have been killed in Culiacán. In this context, state authorities have launched operations surveilling the 256 registered rehabilitation centers across the city, although the Shaddai, Casa Manantial, Rehabilítate, Vida and Transformación centers —all owned by the late Rodríguez Gaxiola— are the only ones that have closed their doors, releasing patients to their families and cutting off their treatments.

Authorities attribute these crimes to the conflict between "Los Chapitos" and "La Mayiza" factions, a feud that has left more than 1,000 people dead since September 2024. As reported by El Sol de Sinaloa, seven rehab centers across the city have been sites of violent incidents during that span, most of them related to forced recruitment.