14 suspects linked to the powerful Sinaloa gang have been arrested in Spain amid an investigation into the kidnapping and murder

Spain has arrested 14 people suspected of links to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa gang as part of an investigation into kidnappings and murders, police said Sunday.

The ring busted by Spanish investigators was mainly made up of Mexicans. It was linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, which is based in northwestern Mexico and has been under attack for weeks. gang fighting.

“Disbanded criminals, based in Catalonia, are believed to be involved in the kidnapping and killing of a man whose body was found in a wooded area” in northeastern Spain in August, police said in a statement.

The victim, whose nationality has not been released, is alleged to have worked with a gang and “came from Italy in a meeting with several bosses.”

The family of the deceased in Kosovo reported his disappearance to the police after he was abducted between May and June.

The family received a ransom demand of 240,000 euros ($253,000) and a total of $32,000 was paid in cryptocurrency.

The 14 arrested suspects are suspected of being involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and murder, the statement said. Those arrested, 11 men and three women, are between 30 and 70 years old.

The Catalonian ring received shipments from Mexico containing clothing laced with methamphetamine, which was then removed from a Spanish lab, police added.

The arrest of the 14 took place a few days after Spain you are arrested one of the top police officers after 20 million euros were found hidden in the walls of his house, as part of the investigation the largest amount of cocaine ever found in the country.

The Sinaloa cartel, named after the Mexican state where it originated, is one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. Its two founders, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada arrested in the United States.

Zambada, 76, was arrested on July 25 in the southern part of the United States, where he arrived with Joaquin Guzman Lopezone of the sons of “El Chapo”, who led a gang known as “Chapitos.” A veteran drug trafficker accused Lopez abducting him and hand him over to US law enforcement.

According to the indictment released by the US Department of Justice last year, the “Chapitos” and their cartel partners used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chiles. harass their opponents while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to the leopards.” El Chapo’s sons have gone among the 28 members of the Sinaloa cartel who were indicted in a major fentanyl trafficking investigation announced in April 2023.

“El Chapo” is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being sentenced in 2019 for crimes including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related crimes.

Extreme criminal violence, much of it related to drug trafficking, has seen more than 450,000 people killed in Mexico since 2006.