The Attorney General's Office of the State of Oaxaca reported on October 22, 2026 the arrest of seven people, including a teenager, for their alleged connection to the six homicides recorded in 72 hours in Juchitán de Zaragoza. The operation brought together state and federal agencies and led to the seizure of a long gun, drugs and distribution equipment.
The arrests come after the capture, on October 14 in Guadalajara, of Iván "N", identified as one of the leaders of Los Cromos, a faction of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, according to El Universal. Oaxaca's secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Félix Quiroz Javier, said there are "indications that this is a realignment following the arrest of the main ringleader in that area." Excélsior reported that the operation was coordinated by the State Investigation Agency, the State Police, the Secretariat of National Defense and the National Guard. For Mexico, the case exposes the pattern of institutional response when an organization fragments in a southern logistics corridor, where the Isthmus concentrates the Interoceanic Corridor and industrial poles under development.
Among those detained are two women, P.S.M., 20, and S.R.C.G., 18, as well as four men between 18 and 24 and a teenager whose identity was withheld. The prosecutor's office specified that the seized items include a long gun, magazines and cartridges of various calibers, doses of marijuana, bags with a granular substance similar to crystal, five cellphones and two gram scales. The agency indicated that the detainees are part of a cell dedicated to extortion, protection payments and drug dealing. In parallel, Iván "N", El Cromo, was bound over to trial for possession of a firearm reserved for exclusive use by the Armed Forces and crimes against health; the precautionary measure is being served at the El Altiplano prison and one month was set for the complementary investigation.
The next development to watch is the arraignment hearing of the seven detainees and the progress of that investigation. The deployment of 267 state personnel, including 50 from the Binnizá Strategic Action Force, and of nearly 250 National Guard personnel sets the pace of the operation in the Isthmus.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.