Spain has arrested 14 people suspected of ties to the powerful Mexican the Sinaloa cartel as part of a kidnapping and murder investigation, police said Sunday.

The ring destroyed by Spanish investigators was made up mainly of Mexicans. He was linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, which is based in northwestern Mexico, and had been rocked for weeks by gang fights.

“The defunct criminal network, which is based in Catalonia, is believed to be involved in the kidnapping and death of a man whose body was found in a wooded area” in the northeastern Spanish region in August, police said in a statement. statement.

The victim, whose nationality was not specified, allegedly worked with the gang and “came from Italy for a meeting with several bosses”.

The victim’s family in Kosovo reported him missing to police after he was abducted between late May and June.

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

The 14 detained suspects were allegedly involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and murder, the statement also states. The inmates, 11 men and 3 women, are aged between 30 and 70.

The Catalonia-based network received shipments from Mexico containing clothing soaked in methamphetamine, which it then traced to a Spanish lab, police added.

The 14 arrests came just days after Spain custody one of its top cops after €20 million was found hidden in the walls of his home during an investigation into the largest cocaine bust ever in the country.

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

Zambada, 76, was arrested on July 25 in the southern United States, where he landed with Joaquin Guzman Lopezone of the sons of “El Chapo” who led a faction of the cartel known as “Chapitos”. The veteran drug dealer accused Lopez kidnapping him and turning him over to US law enforcement.

According to an indictment released by the US Department of Justice last year, “Chapitos” and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electric shocks and chili peppers to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed alive or dead to tigers.” El Chapo’s sons were of the 28 indicted members of the Sinaloa cartel in a massive fentanyl trafficking investigation announced in April 2023.

“El Chapo” is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons offences.

Spiraling criminal violence, largely related to gang-related drug trafficking, has killed more than 450,000 people in Mexico since 2006.

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