An associate of drug cartel kingpin Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was executed inside his car during an attack in northern Mexico which also wounded his eight-month-old daughter.
Ignacio Paez Soto, an operative of the Sinaloa Cartel, was sitting inside his vehicle with his wife when a group of assassins launched the assault outside a convenience store parking lot in Caborca, Sonora.
Witnesses told authorities the assailants jumped out of a Jeep Cherokee carrying military rifles and fired at Paez's Volkswagen Passat before they fled.
Paez - known as 'El Nacho' and 'C1' - was shot more than 50 times and was declared dead at the scene, authorities said.
His baby daughter was shot in the arm and rushed to a hospital by the Red Cross, authorities said. The extent of her gunshot wound is unknown.
The child's mother, who was also at the scene, was not physically injured but was treated by paramedics after suffering a nervous breakdown.
Ignacio Paez was executed in Sonora, Mexico, on Saturday after gunmen launched an attack that left his eight-month-old daughter with a gunshot wound in the arm. Paez oversaw the Sinaloa Cartel's operations throughout the northern state of Sonora
Witnesses told authorities that the assassins opened fire at Ignacio Paez while he was sitting inside his vehicle outside a store in Sonora, Mexico, on Saturday afternoon
Sonora state law enforcement has not provided a motive for the shooting that left a Sinaloa Cartel operative dead and his eight-month-old daughter wounded Saturday in the city of Caborca
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ShareThe Sonora state public security ministry has not provided a motive for Paez' assassination.
Paez has reportedly overseen the Sinaloa Cartel's operations throughout the northern state of Sonora since 2002, including turf in the cities of Sásabe, Alta, Pitiquito and Caborca.
The Sinaloa Cartel, along with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are Mexico’s largest and most powerful drug trafficking organizations.
But the Sinaloa Cartel has been beset by an internal power struggle since El Chapo was captured in 2016 and extradited to America in 2017 on drug charges.
El Chapo's three sons, otherwise known as Los Chapitos, have fought for control of the organization against a cell created by Rafael Caro Quintero.
Caro Quintero is wanted by the United States for the 1985 murder of Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Kiki Camarena.
Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán (pictured) was handed a life-sentence in the U.S. in 2019, when he was found guilty of a number of criminal charges relating to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel
According to Mexican newspaper El Universal, a judge found Paez guilty of trafficking drugs to the United States and sentenced him to 20 years in prison in January 2016.
It is unknown when or why he was released from jail.
Sinaloa Cartel kingpin El Chapo was handed a life-sentence in the U.S. in 2019, when he was found guilty of a number of drugs charges. He is now serving a life sentence in the ADX Florence supermax prison.
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