Mexican Gangs on the Rise, Officials Say, After Deadly Blast at Police Headquarters

A suspected car bomb that ripped through the central Mexican state of Zacatecas on Sunday, injuring at least 11 people, including two police officers, and causing extensive damage to about 40 buildings, appeared to be the work of a narcotics cartel, the state’s governor said.

It follows nearly a dozen similar incidents, some carried out using drones loaded with explosives or landmines, and points to an evolution in the operations of criminal groups, Gov. David Monreal said on Monday.

The suspect vehicle ⁠was abandoned outside the police headquarters in Ojocaliente, central Zacatecas. Monreal told a press conference that it appeared the attack was carried out by an organized crime group in retaliation for the arrest of one of its members on Aug. 29.

Zacatecas state’s head of security, Arturo Medina, said on Aug. 31 that such incidents were on the rise, adding that there was only one bombing in 2024, six last year, and 10 so far this ​year. He did not say how many people died in ​these attacks.

Monreal said organized crime is evolving.

“I don’t ​understand why people aren’t grasping ​the ‌full extent of what’s happening in the country,” he said.

Monreal represents the left-wing Morena party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, but her government has not commented on his statement.

Sheinbaum in July rejected comments from the head of the U.S. ​Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, who said there was “a deadly ‌connection” between the Mexican government and the country’s drug cartels. She said Cole’s remarks were unfortunate.

“It seems more like a political statement than one ​backed by evidence,” Sheinbaum said at the time.

Ilan Katz, a criminal defense attorney in Mexico who also represents banks and other financial institutions, said in July 2025 that Sheinbaum had been taking action against the cartels, under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, and had reduced the flow of fentanyl across the border.

Katz said at the time that Mexico’s drug cartels would never be eliminated forever but that they are definitely being squeezed by Sheinbaum’s government and the head of Mexico’s secretariat of security and citizen protection, Omar García Harfuch.

In February, Mexican forces, using information from U.S. intelligence, organized a raid that led to the death of CJNG leader Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, otherwise known as “El Mencho.”

Harfuch later announced that at least 25 members of the Mexican National Guard had been killed in Jalisco state in retaliatory attacks by CJNG.

Reuters contributed to this report.