Mexico's Juarez drugs cartel boss Vincente Carrillo Fuentes captured

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Mexico's Juarez drugs cartel boss Vincente Carrillo Fuentes captured

Top officials hail the seizure of Vincente Carrillo Fuentes as 'a capture of great importance'

PUBLISHED : Friday, 10 October, 2014, 8:03pm
UPDATED : Friday, 10 October, 2014, 8:03pm

Associated Press in Mexico City

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes is seen after his arrest. Photo: Xinhua

Police have arrested alleged Juarez drugs boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes in the northern city of Torreon, officials announced.

After investigators narrowed Carrillo Fuentes' whereabouts to a neighbourhood of Torreon, he was taken into custody on Thursday at a traffic checkpoint without a shot being fired, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam called the arrest "a capture of great importance".

Carrillo Fuentes, 51, purportedly heads the cartel founded by his late brother, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and both the United States and Mexico had million-dollar rewards for his arrest.

Better known as "the viceroy", he took control of the Juarez cartel after his brother Amado, nicknamed "lord of the skies," died in 1997 in a botched cosmetic surgery. Amado got his nickname by flying of drugs into the US.

It was the second capture of a major drug figure in as many weeks. Mexican authorities nabbed Hector Beltran Leyva in central Mexico on October 1.

The arrests come as Mexico's federal government is under international pressure over the forced disappearance of 43 students by police and a possible massacre of 22 suspected gang members by soldiers. Everyone from outraged Mexicans to the UN is demanding justice.

"I think it's a little bit because of the pressure," Samuel Gonzalez, a former prosecutor, said of the arrests. "This is to say they're doing a lot of work."

The administration has captured many drugs leaders since taking office nearly two years ago, the biggest of them being the arrest last February of Joaquin Guzman, who was boss of the Sinaloa cartel.

Carrillo Fuentes, who had a US$5 million reward on his head from the United States and US$2.2 million in Mexico, faces 46 charges in Texas, including cocaine and marijuana trafficking, money laundering and murder.

Rubido said Carrillo Fuentes presented false papers when stopped by police, was taken into custody, with a bodyguard.

Based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, Carrillo Fuentes led the gang in a battle for control of the area's trafficking routes with interlopers from the Sinaloa cartel, engaging in a multi-year war that cost at least 8,000 lives.

Carrillo Fuentes initially allied his cartel with the Sinaloa gang, but the alliance fell apart following the 2004 killing of another brother, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, in Sinaloa, reportedly ordered by Guzman. In revenge, Carrillo Fuentes allegedly ordered the killing of Guzman's brother in a prison.

From then on, the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels became locked in Mexico's bloodiest turf battle.

In recent years the violence in Juarez has dropped dramatically. The government says better police work and more social programme have helped, while some say it was because of a truce between the cartels.