Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel, also known as ‘La Catrina’ was shot and killed by Mexican authorities last week. At just 21 years old, the Mexican cartel assassin was gunned down in a combined raid by Mexico’s army, National Guard and Michoacán state police at the safe house where she stayed with armed members of the deadly Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
She led a team of hitmen within the New Generation Cartel that killed more than a dozen state cops during an Oct. 14 ambush in Michoacan state’s Aguililla municipality. (1) La Catrina shared her nickname with the female skeletal figure associated with Mexico’s Day of the Dead, and was highly regarded within the cartel.
Lopez Esquivel joined the cartel in 2017, after getting into a relationship with another leader, Miguel ‘El M2’ Fernandez, who was arrested in Friday’s raid.
Since joining the cartel, she rapidly rose up the ranks, and liked to flaunt her lifestyle.
During Friday’s operation, security forces confiscated a log of records that made out López Esquivel to be the person in charge of paying off a group of ‘halcones’ or spies who then filtered information to the cartel. They were reportedly paid $210 a week. (2)
Footage recorded by the military showed a battered and bloodied López Esquivel sitting on the ground and struggling with her breath. She had been shot in the neck. A Mexican soldier is heard in the video assuring her that medical assistance was on the way. She died at a local hospital.
Sources/Photo credits: (1) The Sun UK (2) Daily Mail
This post contains affiliate links. We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. This is at no extra cost to you, and it helps to keep our website going. Thank you if you use our links, we really appreciate it!