The Mexican marines have captured and arrested Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, head of the Zetas drug-gang leaders in a raid near the U.S. border, the BBC reported. Morales was reportedly wanted on both sides of the border for running drugs on a worldwide scale and for ordering massacres. Morales was reportedly intercepted with two lieutenants in a pick-up truck near Nuevo Laredo, and Mexican officials said that he had eight guns and $2 million in cash, BBC also reported.
This represents the biggest high profile arrest in Mexico since President Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in last December.
President Nieto pledged to change the Mexican policy of the previous government by targeting cartels through law enforcement on a local level rather than capturing big-name targets. The former president Felipe Calderon deployed the Mexican army throughout the country, in pursuit of cartel leaders, which left a power vacuum, news reports said.
Known as 'Zeta-40,' Trevor Morales was captured near the U.S. border at dawn on Monday.
"Three people in the truck were detained by ground troops, who had arrived to support the naval forces, who had carried out the detention via the helicopter. Not a single shot was fired," government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said.
The Zetas drug cartel began as the enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel, another powerful criminal gang. It split from the Gulf cartel in 2010, fueling more intense turf wars largely across northern Mexico. By 2012, the Zetas were seen as the largest and most powerful cartel.
Analysts believe Morales' younger brother, Omar, has been one of his closest lieutenants and may try to position himself as successor, BBC also reported.
In 2010, Morales allegedly ordered the torture and murder of 72 Central American migrants as punishment for their refusal to act as 'drugs mules.' In 2011, he apparently oversaw the massacre of almost 200 immigrants for similar reasons, news reports said.
Morales has also believed to have controlled a squad of killers who operated in Texas; U.S. authorities offered a reward of $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture, BBC also reported.
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