A popular Mexican band has been fined more than $36,000 for performing songs glorifying drug cartels, authorities in the northern city of Chihuahua announced Wednesday.
At a Los Tucanes de Tijuana performance on Saturday, nearly a third of their songs were “narcocorridos” glamorizing drug traffickers, according to city official Pedro Oliva.
The songs “glorified crime or alluded to the perpetrators of illegal acts,” Oliva said in a television interview.
Los Tucanes were banned from performing in their home city Tijuana from 2008 to 2023 for alleged shoutouts to two drug traffickers during a concert.
Los Tucanes de Tijuana attend The 23rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards at Michelob ULTRA Arena on November 17, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Denise Truscello/Getty Images for The Latin Recording Academy
Several states across the country have imposed restrictions on the controversial subgenre of regional music, which is growing rapidly, even beyond Mexico’s borders. In April, the ban sparked a riot during a concert after a singer refused to perform some of his most popular songs.
Peso Pluma, who blends corridos with rap and hip-hop, was the seventh most-streamed artist in the world in 2024, according to Spotify.
President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected the idea of banning “narcocorridos,” preferring to launch a music competition “for peace and against addictions” to counter the influence of drug culture among young people.
Two months ago, the United States revoked the visas of the band Los Alegres del Barranco for showing images of a wanted drug lord during a concert.
“I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression, but that doesn’t mean that expression should be free of consequences,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said at the time. “The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists.”
At the end of May, members of Grupo Firme canceled a concert in the United States, saying their visas were under “administrative review” by the U..S embassy.
Musicians in Mexico sometimes get caught up in cartel violence themselves. Last month, the bodies of five Mexican musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo, were found in Reynosa along the Texas border. At least nine alleged cartel members were arrested and later drugs and weapons were seized in connection to the murders.
In January this year, a small plane was reported to have dropped pamphlets on a northwestern city threatening around 20 music artists and influencers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
In 2018, armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group “Los Norteños de Río Bravo,” whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.
In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia were executed by alleged cartel members in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly because of links to a rival gang.
Five police officers died Monday after they were ambushed by an armed group in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, local officials said.
The attack happened in the town of Frontera Comalapa, where the Chiapas state police officers were on patrol when they were ambushed.
“Members of the state police were attacked and ambushed,” the governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Ramirez, said on social media.
Ramirez identified the slain officers as Guillermo Cortés Morales, Jesús Sánchez Pérez, Joel Martínez Pérez, Brenda Lizbeth Toalá Blanco and Pedro Hernández Hernánde.
The local Security Secretariat said it had deployed more than 1,000 officers to “attend to the situation and guarantee security in the area.”
Five police officers died Monday after they were ambushed by an armed group in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, local officials said.
Chiapas State Governor Eduardo Ramirez
The agency also shared an image of the slain officers’ charred patrol vehicle after it was completely engulfed in flames on a roadway.
Later, the agency announced on social media they had arrested a man in connection to the murders. Authorities said the suspect was hiding in the weeds about half a mile from the crime scene, carrying an AK-47 rifle and a backpack with military uniforms. Officials did not immediately give information about other possible suspects.
In recent months, Chiapas has been shaken by a bloody turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel — the country’s two most powerful criminal organizations. Chiapas has been described by the InSight Crime think tank as “a major smuggling hub of both drugs and migrants.”
In December, authorities said they recovered more than 30 bodies from pits in Chiapas.
Three suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Mexican musicians in Tamaulipas state along the Texas border were arrested during a series of raids, officials said on Monday.
The five members of local band Fugitivo had been hired for a weekend performance in the crime-wracked northeastern city of Reynosa, but arrived to find a vacant lot. Their bodies were found several days later after their families reported receiving ransom demands.
“An operation was carried out on three properties” in Reynosa, the public security office said in a statement, adding that the three suspects had been arrested there.
Investigators said the musicians had been kidnapped on May 25 while driving to a private event. Nine alleged cartel members were arrested last week, with authorities announcing another sting on Monday.
Prosecutors said the nine people arrested last week were believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has strong presence in the city, but they did not indicate if the three new suspects arrested had the same links.
During the newest operation, weapons, weapons cartridges, cocaine and methamphetamines were also seized, the ministry added.
Mexican Army members stand guard at the scene where, according to Mexican authorities, the members of the musical group Grupo Fugitivo were found dead, in Reynosa, Mexico May 29, 2025.
Stringer / REUTERS
Reynosa is a Mexican border city adjacent to the United States and has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft.
The U.S. State Department has revoked visas of a number of Mexican musicians for playing music that it says glorifies cartel violence. Last week, the popular Mexican regional music band Grupo Firme announced that it was canceling a performance in a music festival in California after the United States government suspended the musicians’ visas.
In April, the U.S. State Department revoked the visas of members of the band Los Alegres del Barranco after they projected the face of a drug cartel boss onto a large screen during a performance.
Musicians targeted in Mexico
Mexican regional music, which encapsulates a wide range of styles including corridos and cumbia, has in recent years gained a spotlight as it’s entered a sort of international musical renaissance. Young artists sometimes pay homage to leaders of drug cartels, often portrayed as Robin Hood-type figures.
It was not immediately clear if Fugitivo played such songs or if the artists were simply victims of rampant cartel violence that has eclipsed the city.
Mexican musicians have previously been targeted by criminal groups that pay them to compose and perform songs that glorify the exploits of their leaders.
Such performers often live in close proximity to their drug lord patrons, and can at times get caught up in gang turf battles.
“Narcocorridos” are a controversial sub-genre of music in Mexico, and the songs have caught the attention of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who recently launched a music contest “for peace and against addictions,” seeking to counter the popularity of the music among young people in Mexico and the United States.
Several regions in the country have banned “narcocorridos,” sparking a recent riot during a concert after a singer refused to perform some of his most popular songs.
In January this year, a small plane was reported to have dropped pamphlets on a northwestern city threatening around 20 music artists and influencers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
In 2018, armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group “Los Norteños de Río Bravo,” whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.
In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia were executed by alleged cartel members in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly because of links to a rival gang.
A fire in a drug rehabilitation center in the violence-plagued Mexican state of Guanajuato killed 12 people and injured at least three others, authorities said Sunday.
The fire broke out early Sunday in the town of San Jose Iturbe, where the municipal government said it was still investigating what caused the deadly blaze.
“We express our solidarity with the families of those who have been killed while they tried to overcome addictions,” the municipal government said in a statement, adding that it will help to pay for the funeral expenses of those killed.
Mexican media outlets reported that the victims of the fire had been locked up inside the rehab center.
A woman lits candles at the rehabilitation center where 12 people died due to a fire in San Jose Iturbide community, Guanajuato state, Mexico on June 1, 2025.
MARIO ARMAS/AFP via Getty Images
Mexico’s privately run drug rehabilitation centers are often abusive, clandestine, unregulated and underfunded. They have been the targets of similar attacks in the past.
The industrial and agricultural state of Guanajuato has for years been the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation cartel and a local gang, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any state in Mexico.
Just last month, investigators found 17 bodies during a search for missing persons in an abandoned house in Guanajuato. Days before that, seven people, including children, were gunned down in the same region.
Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at rehab facilities in the past. Officials also believe cartels sometimes execute patients who refuse to join their ranks.
In April, gunmen shot up a drug rehab clinic in the troubled Sinaloa state, killing at least nine people.
In July 2022, six people were shot dead at a drug rehab center near the western Mexican city of Guadalajara. Two years before that, heavily armed men stormed a drug rehab center in the central city of Irapuato and killed 27 people.
In 2010, 19 people were killed in an attack on a rehab center in Chihuahua, a city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen other attacks on such facilities occurred in the decade between those massacres.
May 31 (UPI) — A popular Mexican band named Grupo Firme was scheduled to play the La Onda Fest on Sunday, but it has canceled due to work visa-processing issues.
The festival is being held in Napa Valley, Calif., but the Tijuana-based band said its work visas are in an “administrative process” that won’t enable its members to participate in the festival, Billboard reported on Saturday.
“The visas of Grupo Firme and the team of Music VIP are in an administrative process by the U.S. Embassy, a situation that makes it impossible for Grupo Firme to perform at La Onda Fest as planned,” the musical group posted on social media.
“We regret any inconvenience this may cause,” the band said. “We appreciate your understanding and, above all, the love from our fans in the U.S.”
The band intends to perform again in the United States, but the visa-processing issue is stopping it from doing so at the moment.
A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Mexico told Billboard that visa records are confidential and staff cannot and will not discuss individual cases.
The band is not the only Mexican musical act to encounter visa issues.
Singer Julion Alvarez postponed a sold-out show scheduled May 24 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, USA Today reported.
His band, Julion Alvarez y su Norteno Banda, sold nearly all of the 50,000 tickets for the concert.
Alvarez, 42, learned his visa had been canceled, and it would be impossible to perform the next day.
Promoter CMN and the Copar Music record company said they will reschedule the concert.
Ticketholders have the option of getting a refund or using their tickets if the event is rescheduled.
The bodies of five musicians, members of a Mexican regional music group who had gone missing, were found in the northern city of Reynosa along the Texas border, authorities said on Thursday.
The musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo, which played at parties and local dances in the region, had been reported missing since Sunday.
Tamaulipas state prosecutors, who had been investigating their disappearance, said the men were kidnapped around 10 p.m. that night while traveling in a SUV on the way to a venue where they were hired to play. Their bodies were found on the fringes of Reynosa. Prosecutors said nine suspects believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has strong presence in the city, have been arrested.
Authorities were not immediately able to say why the men were slain, and did not deny reports by local media that the bodies had been burned.
The vehicle belonging to Mexican musical group Grupo Fugitivo is seen outside the Specialized Unit for the Investigation of Forced Disappearances, after Mexican authorities confirmed that five members of the band were found dead, in Reynosa, Mexico May 29, 2025.
Stringer / REUTERS
Relatives had reported receiving ransom demands for the musicians, aged between 20 and 40 years old. The band was hired to put on a concert but arrived to find a vacant lot, according to family members.
The genre they played – Mexican regional music, which encapsulates a wide range of styles including corridos and cumbia – has in recent years gained a spotlight as it’s entered a sort of international musical renaissance. Young artists sometimes pay homage to leaders of drug cartels, often portrayed as Robin Hood-type figures.
It was not immediately clear if the group played such songs or if the artists were simply victims of rampant cartel violence that has eclipsed the city. But other artists have faced death threats by cartels, while others have had their visas stripped by the United States under accusations by the Trump administration that they were glorifying criminal violence.
The last time the musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo were heard from was the night they were kidnapped, when they told family members they were on the way to the event. After that, nothing else was heard of them.
Their disappearance caused an uproar in Tamaulipas, a state long eclipsed by cartel warfare. Their families reported the disappearances, called on the public for support and people took to the streets in protest.
On Wednesday, protesters blocked the international bridge connecting Reynosa and Pharr, Texas, later going to a local cathedral to pray and make offerings to the disappeared.
Mexican Army members stand guard at the scene where, according to Mexican authorities, the members of the musical group Grupo Fugitivo were found dead, in Reynosa, Mexico May 29, 2025.
Stringer / REUTERS
Reynosa is a Mexican border city adjacent to the United States and has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft.
Musicians sometimes get caught in cartel turf wars
Mexican musicians have previously been targeted by criminal groups that pay them to compose and perform songs that glorify the exploits of their leaders.
Such performers often live in close proximity to their drug lord patrons, and can at times get caught up in gang turf battles.
“Narcocorridos” are a controversial sub-genre of music in Mexico, and the songs have caught the attention of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who recently launched a music contest “for peace and against addictions,” seeking to counter the popularity of the music among young people in Mexico and the United States.
Several regions in the country have banned “narcocorridos,” sparking a recent riot during a concert after a singer refused to perform some of his most popular songs.
In April, the U.S. State Department revoked the visas of members of a Mexican band after they projected the face of a drug cartel boss onto a large screen during a performance in the western state of Jalisco. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was U.S. ambassador to Mexico during the first Trump administration, said on social media that the work and tourism visas of members of Los Alegres del Barranco were revoked.
The controversy broke out in late March when the face of Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes layered over flames was projected behind the band, originally hailing from Sinaloa, during the concert.
Oseguera is the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has been connected to a ranch authorities say was used to train cartel recruits and possibly dispose of bodies in Jalisco, where searchers found human bone fragments, heaps of clothing and shoes. The U.S. government has offered a $15 million reward for information leading to Oseguera’s capture. In November, his son-in-law was arrested in California after U.S. officials say he faked his own death to “live a life of luxury” north of the border.
The Jalisco cartel is among other criminal groups in Mexico that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.
While the image was met by applause during the concert, Jalisco prosecutors quickly announced they were summoning the band to testify in an investigation into whether they were promoting violence, a crime which could result in a penalty of up to six months in prison
In 2018, armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group “Los Norteños de Río Bravo,” whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.
In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia were executed by alleged cartel members in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly because of links to a rival gang.
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An explosive device killed six soldiers and wounded two others in a western Mexican region wracked by drug cartel violence, an official military report seen by AFP on Wednesday said.
The blast late Tuesday near a town in Michoacan state destroyed the armored vehicle in which the troops were traveling, according to the internal document.
Military planes and helicopters were deployed to help the casualties, it said.
President Claudia Sheinbaum described the deaths as “deplorable” and expressed solidarity with the victims.
Warring criminals in the region have a history of planting improvised landmines and attacking security forces with explosive-laden drones.
Several soldiers have been killed in similar explosions in the past.
Criminal violence, most of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left more than 120,000 people missing.
U.S. President Donald Trump has designated six Mexican drug trafficking groups terrorist organizations, fueling speculation that he might order military strikes against them.
Michoacan, where the deadly bombing took place, has been plagued by violence as a turf war rages between the influential Jalisco New Generation drug cartel and local criminal groups.
Last month, gunmen seized cargo trucks and set them on fire on a highway connecting Mexico City to Guadalajara, before police reported at least 18 similar cases in the neighboring states of Michoacan and Guanajuato. A Michoacan police source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the attacks were a reaction by Jalisco New Generation to a military operation in the area.
Last August, Michoacan’s chief prosecutor confirmed that gunmen linked to drug cartels shot to death seven members of the community police force in the town of Coahuayana.
The influence of cartels has also infiltrated communities in the area. In December, a sign in a town in Michoacan was posted thanking a cartel leader — who has a $15 million bounty on his head in the U.S. — for holiday season presents for children. The message at a Christmas fair thanked Jalisco cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera — better known by his nickname “El Mencho” — for the gifts.
Investigators found 17 bodies in an abandoned house in a central Mexican region plagued by cartel violence, the state prosecutor’s office said.
The remains were discovered when the property in Irapuato in Guanajuato state was searched as part of a missing persons investigation, according to a statement released late Monday.
Five of the victims have been identified as missing persons, it said.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state, according to official homicide statistics.
The violent crime is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation. The cartel is one of several that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administrarion.
Guanajuato recorded the most homicides of any state in Mexico last year, with 3,151, 10.5% of murders nationwide, according to official figures.
Since 2006, when the military launched an anti-drug operation, Mexico has tallied about 480,000 violent deaths.
Recent violence in Guanajuato
Innocent bystanders and police officers are often casualties amid cartel turf wars in Guanajuato.
Earlier this month, officials said gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including children, in Guanajuato, and officers found two banners with messages alluding to the Santa Rosa de Lima gang. Messages are often left on victims’ bodies by cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.
In February, five women and three men were shot dead in the street in Guanajuato. The month before that, security forces clashed with gunmen in the state, leaving 10 suspected criminals dead and three police officers injured.
Last December, eight people were killed and two others wounded after gunmen pulled up to a roadside stand in Guanajuato and opened fire on customers.
Two months before that, the bodies of 12 slain police officers — all bearing signs of torture and left with messages by cartels — were found in different areas of the region. The state prosecutor’s office also said the perpetrators left messages in which a cartel claimed responsibility.
The bodies were found less than 24 hours after gunmen attacked a residential center for people suffering from addictions in the same municipality, killing four people.
A popular singer from Chiapas, Mexico, has announced that he has cancelled his U.S. tour after the Trump administration denied his visa request.
Singer Julión Álvarez took to his social media to tell fans in Arlington, Texas, that he was forced to cancel his shows there after being refused an entry visa.
“We don’t have the ability to come to the US and fulfill our commitment to you,” Álvarez wrote on Instagram, according to the Daily Beast. “The event will be postponed, until we hear what comes next.”
This is not the first time that Álvarez was forced to disappoint fans in the U.S. as he has been repeatedly denied a visa over the last decade. Indeed, last year, the Biden administration unexpectedly approved his request for temporary visa to perform in the U.S. and it was the first time in seven years he was permitted to enter the country.
U.S. officials have repeatedly denied the singer’s visa requests after suspicions that he is linked to Raúl Flores, a Sinaloa Drug Cartel leader. However, Álvarez has steadfastly denied being involved in any cartel business. And even though he admitted to partnering with Flores in a real estate business deal, he said that he did not know the real estate company he was doing business with was connected to Flores.
Álvarez is not the first Mexican artist to have concerts cancelled due to the Trump administration’s denial of a visa.
In April, the State Department denied temporary visitor visas to Los Alegres del Barranco, a Narcocorrido band that sings songs glorifying the drug cartels.
In a post replying to the revocation of their visas, the band insisted they never intended to offend anyone, writing in Spanish, “It was never our intention to generate controversy, let alone cause offense. We will take more stringent measures regarding the visual and narrative content of our performances,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
