Cartels

MEXICO CITY - An alleged local commander of the Zetas paramilitary cartel in the troubled border state of Coahuila has been captured, the Mexican navy announced Thursday, expressing hope that he might lead authorities to the notorious group's remaining top leader. Said Omar Juarez was taken into custody on a prominent street in Saltillo, Coahuila's capital, the navy said in a statement released as the suspect was presented to reporters in Mexico City. In his possession were weapons and packages containing what may be cocaine and marijuana, the statement said.

Few outside Coahuila state noticed. Headlines were rare. But steadily, inexorably, Mexico's third-largest state slipped under the control of its deadliest drug cartel, the Zetas. The aggressively expanding Zetas took advantage of three things in this state right across the border from Texas: rampant political corruption, an intimidated and silent public, and, if new statements by the former governor are to be believed, a complicit and profiting segment of the business elite. It took scarcely three years.

EL PASO - One of his clients, a Mexican waitress and widowed mother of three, says she played dead under a pile of bodies to survive a massacre in Ciudad Juarez led by men she recognized as federal police. Another client says Chihuahua state police hacked off his feet after he refused to pay them bribes. They came to El Paso seeking Carlos Spector, 58, a burly, hard-charging immigration attorney who has developed a strange specialty in this Texas border city. His clients, instead of crossing into the United States illegally and hiding out, are seeking asylum.

SAN DIEGO - A woman claiming to be the daughter of the world's most wanted drug trafficker was arrested at the San Ysidro port of entry Friday afternoon after trying to enter the country with fraudulent documents, according to a criminal complaint and a high-ranking U.S. law enforcement official. Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman Salazar allegedly told U.S. customs officers that she was traveling to Los Angeles to give birth. After questioning, she admitted that she was the daughter of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, the leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, said the unidentified official who is not authorized to speak about the case.

SAN DIEGO - Federal authorities have linked a high-ranking Mexican organized crime member to two of the largest drug tunnels ever discovered under the San Diego-Tijuana border, according to a 13-count indictment announced Wednesday that details a far-flung operation that allegedly moved tons of marijuana across the border. Jose Sanchez-Villalobos, 49, is the highest-ranking member of the Sinaloa drug cartel ever charged in connection with the construction of underground tunnels, according to federal prosecutors in San Diego.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities working closely with their U.S. counterparts scored big in the fight against drug cartels with the capture of a top leader of Mexico's most vicious criminal gang, the Zetas paramilitary force. Ivan Velazquez Caballero, who used aliases that included "Zeta-50" and "El Taliban," was presented to reporters Thursday in Mexico City by masked naval special forces. Navy spokesman Vice Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said Velazquez was captured a day earlier when the marines surrounded one of his residences in the eastern city of San Luis Potosi.

MEXICO CITY - Authorities have captured the top leader of the Gulf cartel, a potentially fatal blow to one of Mexico's major drug-trafficking networks that could also unleash a violent power struggle that would pose an immediate and explosive challenge to the incoming government of President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto. It is the second big catch of a suspected Gulf cartel capo in 10 days and essentially wipes out the leadership of an organization that once dominated large parts of Mexico.

Mexico's U.S.-backed naval special forces have captured a man believed to be one of the two top leaders of the Gulf cartel, a drug-trafficking organization that once dominated the northeast border region but has recently engaged in devastating battles with the vicious Zeta paramilitary force, authorities said Tuesday. Mario Cardenas Guillen, alias El Gordo ("Fatso"), was paraded before reporters in Mexico City on Tuesday after his capture Monday in the northern border state of Tamaulipas.

SAN DIEGO - Eduardo Arellano Felix, one of a band of brothers who headed what was once Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking organization, was extradited to the U.S. on Friday, capping a 20-year effort to bring the siblings to justice in federal court. Arellano Felix, 55, a onetime medical student nicknamed "El Doctor," was allegedly a key advisor in the Arellano Felix drug cartel, which during its heyday in the 1980s and '90s pumped tons of drugs into the U.S. and murdered hundreds while defending their turf in Baja California.

MEXICO CITY - In the midst of a violent drug war, President Felipe Calderon fired crooked cops by the hundreds, and hired new ones - rigorously vetted and college educated - by the thousands. Salaries were doubled, new standards imposed and officers were subjected to extensive background checks. A trustworthy federal police force was to be one of the most important legacies of Calderon's six-year term. And yet, just months before he is to leave office in December, the president found himself apologizing "profoundly" this week for an incident in which federal police allegedly opened fire on an SUV with diplomatic plates, injuring two Americans.