Sinaloa cartel boss gunned down in Spaghetti Western massacre after cockfight bloodbath

Jose 'El Chabelo' Isabel was already wanted on a homicide warrant before he and accomplices gunned down crowd members at a cockfight on Sunday, while police rushed to take him down

A deadly cartel leader was killed by police after a Spaghetti Western-style shootout.

Jose ‘El Chabelo’ Isabel, one of the Sinaloa Cartel ’s top dogs in the city of Manzanillo in Colima, Mexico, was gunned down by cops Sunday (December 15) according to Spanish-language news outlet Excelsior. Earlier that day Isabel and his cohort of mobsters had been involved in a bloodbath at a cockfight which left two dead and several others wounded.

Isabel’s crew had stormed into the Las Parotas neighbourhood where a cockfight was being observed by a large crowd. According to reports the gang opened fire on the group of people, killing two before fleeing the scene.

A squad of Mexican national police managed to chase down the gunmen, leading to a wild shootout which left Isabel and an unidentified accomplice dead.

Latin Times reports Isabel was believed to be a “plaza boss” for the cartel in the city and was already wanted on a homicide warrant before being killed over the weekend.

The Mexican state of Colima, part of the country’s Pacific coastline, reported 623 homicides between January and October this year according to national data published by Latin Times. That’s a murder rate of 105 killings per 100,000 residents, an alarming five times higher than the national average for Mexico.

The Sinaloa Cartel was famously led for years by Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, before the kingpin’s third and final capture by authorities in 2016. One of his spectacular escapes involved travelling through a one-mile tunnel under a high security prison.

This epic bid for freedom was made all the more impressive due to the fact El Chapo reportedly made his escape while riding a motorbike mounted onto a rail in the tunnel.