Mexican police arrest alleged head of Juarez cartel

Mexican officials said on Thursday they had captured the suspected leader of the Juarez drug cartel, Vincente Carrillo Fuentes, in the northern city of Torreon.

Known as "El Viceroy," the 51-year-old drug lord - or "capo" - was arrested in an operation that officials said involved no shots being fired.

The Mexican authorities had offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.2 million) for the arrest of Vincente, with US law enforcement offering $5 milllion. The suspect was allegedly heading the cartel founded by his late brother Amado Carillo Fuentes.

Vincente kept trafficking on a more modest scale than his brother, but in an altogether more violent time for the cartel.

The gang, based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, was engaged in a battle for control of the area's trafficking routes as it faced increasing competition from the Sinaloa cartel. Some 70 percent of cocaine that enters the United States is believed to pass through the area.

For some time, the Juarez and Sinaloa cartel formed an alliance, but that disintegrated after the 2004 killing of another of Vincente's brothers, Rodolfo. Some 8,000 people are believed to have died in the turf war that followed.

Ciudad Juarez was once known as the murder capital of the world, although the homicide rate has dropped in recent years - ostensibly because the Sinaloa gang finally won.

The US State Department says the younger Carillo Fuentes would face a 46-count indictment in Texas.

Series of successes against 'capos'

Vincente is the second major drug lord to be arrested this month, after Mexican authorities captured Hector Beltran Leyva while he ate tacos in a seafood restaurant in the central state of Guanajuato on October 1.

That arrest represented another success for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. It followed the capture of Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in February and Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino last year.

Vincente Crillo Fuentes' brother Amado, also known as "The Lord of the Skies," was considered one of the biggest drug traffickers in Latin America until he apparently died during plastic surgery in Mexico City in 1997. Some believe Amado is still alive.

The back-to-back arrests come as the Mexican government comes under international and domestic pressure over the disappearance of 43 students, allegedly by police and gangs linked with police.

rc/lw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)