A violent internecine struggle between rival factions within Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel has inspired one side to come up with its own signature for their gruesome handiwork: leaving corpses of its victims on in public wearing sombreros as a warning to their enemies, CBS news reports.
At least five bodies wearing the wide-brimmed hats were found by cops Saturday on the streets of Sinaloa amid a wave of bloodshed as differing factions seek to seize power within the cartel following the July arrest of the syndicate’s co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. It’s not clear what message the sombreros – a cultural symbol of Mexico – are supposed to convey to the enemy faction of the cartel, as in whether one side see themselves as more authentically Mexican than the other. Or that the victims are simply taking a “permanent siesta.” Either way, its pretty uninspired and cliched, like they might as well be Al-Qaeda goons putting turbans on their victims.
Then there’s the labor requirement of carrying a stack of sombreros around at the ready every time they could encounter their rivals, though maybe they assign one of the newer guys to hang back with them while the more experienced crew members stage an ambush. Like “hat guy” is the grunt role every rookie needs to suck up and do if they want to move up. It’s probably a little easier than being “pizza guy” in the rival faction as their signature, per CBS, is to use a knife to pin a slice of pizza on the bodies of their victims. That’s gotta be a pain in the ass to carry a boxed pizza around everywhere they go. But it’s definitely more interesting than the sombrero sign, even if its message is just as inscrutable. If we had to guess we would hazard that the pizza is meant to tell the other guys “Here’s your slice of the cartel, puto.” Or maybe they’re “delivering” death to their enemies.
Let’s be real here though: Neither of them are on the level of “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”