The Narco Blog

‘Los Mayas’ Hold Cuernavaca and Tepoztlán, Morelos Crime Map Says: CJNG, La Familia Michoacana and 15 Cells Fight Next to Mexico City After 2 Students, 17, Are Shot Dead

By The Narco Blog · October 5, 2026 · Updated October 5, 2026

Two Guardia Nacional officers speak with a resident at a doorway on a Morelos street while a soldier stands guard by a parked car. — Guardia Nacional officers and an army soldier during a security and crime-prevention deployment in Morelos, published April 16, 2026. Photo: Guardia Nacional, via gob.mx. This photo is not from the September and October 2026 killings described in this story.

Authorities in Morelos, the state just south of Mexico City that includes Cuernavaca and the weekend town of Tepoztlán, are working from a “criminal atlas” that puts a cell called Los Mayas in control of the Cuernavaca metro area, El Universal reported on Oct. 4, 2026. The newspaper said the review came after a run of killings, including two 17-year-old students shot dead in Cuernavaca on Sept. 26.

Who holds what, according to the atlas

According to El Universal, the CJNG and La Familia Michoacana lead the state’s criminal landscape and are present in much of its 36 municipalities. They compete with the regional groups Federación Guerrerense, Unión Morelense, Unión Tepito and Nuevo Imperio, plus 15 smaller cells.

The atlas, held by Morelos’ peace-building security panel, names Los Mayas, also called Los de Siempre, as the state’s most violent cell. El Universal said it is led by a man authorities identify as Abel Maya, who came up in the Beltrán Leyva Organization. Authorities say the group now dominates Cuernavaca, Huitzilac, Tepoztlán, Emiliano Zapata, Temixco and Jiutepec, and fights La Familia Michoacana cells over Cuernavaca. In the east, Cuautla, Yautepec and Yecapixtla are a battleground between the Cártel del Pacífico and Unión Tepito, the paper reported.

The killings that raised the alarm

Christian Shamed and Gael, both 17, were with other young people on a corner in Cuernavaca’s Chulavista neighborhood when men got out of a vehicle, held them at gunpoint and opened fire, witnesses told El Universal. Police commanders told the paper that only La Familia Michoacana or Los Mayas could have carried out the killing. The paper did not report any arrests.

El Universal also listed these killings:

Sept. 19: a sergeant from the army’s 108th Infantry Battalion was shot dead in Tlaquiltenango while chasing an armed group. That same weekend, attackers broke into a building and killed the PRI party’s municipal leader in Tetecala.
Sept. 20: federal, state and municipal forces shot dead Juan Torres Salazar, “El Banda,” in Tlaltizapán. Officials linked him to a group allegedly tied to La Familia Michoacana.
Oct. 1: eight people were killed across the state. They included three men and two women found beside the Xochimilco-Oaxtepec highway in Tlalnepantla, and a man killed in Temixco while taking his daughter to school.

The paper also cited the killing of a judge in southern Morelos and the femicide of Spanish student Claudia Tacoronte, whose alleged killer was caught after tips from the public.

El Universal’s video report on the Morelos cartel war:

Sources

Reported Oct. 5, 2026, from El Universal’s Oct. 4 report, which draws on authorities’ criminal atlas and on police commanders who spoke anonymously. Group control and suspected responsibility are authorities’ assessments, not court findings. No one named here has been convicted in these killings.