• Racetrack shooting in Parral linked to feud between rival cartels
• Victim tied to earlier family massacre involving horse racing business interests
• Horse tracks emerge as suspected fronts for cartel money laundering

Mexican authorities have deployed army troops and the National Guard to the city of Parral in Mexico’s Chihuahua state after gunmen opened fire at a horse racing event Saturday, killing at least seven people and injuring about a dozen more.

La Puerta del Tiempo, an arch at the entrance to the city of Parral, where a mutilated body was left Sunday, apparently in retaliation for the racetrack massacre the day before. (Image: El Sol)

The attack at the Hipódromo Santa Teresa was sparked by a feud between rival criminal groups, according to the Chihuahua Public Safety Director’s Office. While authorities haven’t named these groups, local media reported that the assault was carried out by La Línea (“The Line”), the leading armed enforcement wing of the Juárez Cartel.

The group is at war with a cell of the Sinaloa cartel known as “Los Salgueiro,” whose members number most of the dead.

Some reports claim that members of La Línea arrived at the event and opened fire with AK-47 rifles as well as 9 mm and .40-caliber weapons, sparking a chaotic gunfight, although authorities haven’t yet confirmed the sequence of events, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Singer and Family Killed

Among the dead is a man nicknamed “El Borrego” (“The Lamb), who was wanted by police in connection with the murder of a local singer and his family.

Kevin Amalio Hernández, lead singer of popular Parral-based band “H Norteña,” his wife Marisela Barrón Sandoval, their three children, and Barrón Sandoval’s mother, Micaela Sandoval, were ambushed by a group of armed men on May 5, 2024.

The killings appeared targeted, and prosecutors are working on the theory that they weren’t related to Hernández’s music career, but instead, to the horse racing industry, Barrón Sandoval’s family business.

She was the owner of a nearby horse racing facility called Centro Hípico Maturana. In August 2023, José Domingo Carrera Bermúdez, an alleged member of the Sinaloa Cartel, was kidnapped at the track. His body was found months later in Ciudad Juárez.

Prosecutors believe these incidents suggest that the Sinaloa Cartel may have ventured into the horse racing business, potentially as a front for money laundering.

Revenge Killing

The Sinaloa Cartel and the Juárez Cartel have been locked in a violent turf war for control of drug-trafficking routes, distribution hubs, and other criminal operations in the border region around Ciudad Juárez since the late 2000s — a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

A note pinned to the body made it clear this was an act of retaliation.

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