Drug Arrests Mexico

Federal officials have arrested a man they accuse of being the mentor and principal financier of imprisoned drug kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo during the drug lord's two years in prison. Baltazar Diaz Vega, 40, was arrested Tuesday at his home in Culiacan, a city in northwestern Mexico known as a drug center and Felix Gallardo's home base. Diaz Vega has played a key role in Colombian-Mexican-U.S.

Mexico detained a former senior police official Friday on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers, as well as an alleged founder of a vicious gang of drug cartel hit men. Police arrested Jaime Gonzalez Duran, also known as "The Hummer," in the northern city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. Gonzalez Duran is allegedly one of the founding members of the Zetas, a group of army deserters who went to work as hit men for the Gulf cartel.

The Mexican government announced Wednesday the capture of one of the country's most wanted fugitives, Alcides Ramon Magana, a major step in President Vicente Fox's crackdown on drug trafficking and corruption. Hours after Magana's arrest, an indictment against him was unsealed in U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New York, the same venue where U.S. charges against former Gov. Mario Villanueva of Quintana Roo state in southern Mexico were made public last month. The U.S.

Mexican troops arrested a leading member of a major drug gang and seized two suitcases containing about $900,000 in cash, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said Monday. Soldiers detained Alfredo Beltran Leyva and three other people Sunday in the northwestern city of Culiacan, the spokeswoman said.

In the latest in a series of embarrassments in Mexico's struggle to battle its powerful narcotics cartels, two federal agents were under arrest Saturday after the brother of convicted drug kingpin Juan Garcia Abrego "inexplicably" walked out of a federal police lockup.

Rafael Munoz Talavera was out of town the day U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents trooped into his palatial $3-million estate in suburban El Paso. Only the caretaker was there when DEA staff cars pulled into the Munoz family's circular driveway on the afternoon of Oct. 6. Munoz's wife and three children had left behind spacious closets filled with finely tailored clothes and a few scattered pieces of jewelry.

Over the weekend, more than 30 Mexican narcotics agents off the island port of Cozumel seized and boarded the Rusalka, an 87-foot motor yacht worth more than $2 million and based in Newport Harbor. The owner says some agents ripped open the suede ceiling covers, slashed the mauve and white upholstery made of silk and rummaged through the holds as other agents tore up teak woodwork from stem to stern with sledgehammers.

The personal pilot of a top Colombian cocaine kingpin has been arrested and is being held for extradition to the United States, police in Bogota said. The pilot, Jorge de la Cuesta Marquez, is wanted in Florida on drug charges. He was identified as the pilot for Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin cocaine cartel. Meanwhile, nephews of two other Colombian drug traffickers were reported captured in Mexico City, where authorities broke up a ring that flew cocaine to Mexico on its way to Florida.

Mexican federal police have made the largest heroin seizure in Mexican history, breaking up what authorities described Sunday as an unprecedented Asian-Mexican alliance that shipped Asian heroin into the United States through an unusual route: the border. In a series of raids over the past five days, police seized 52 kilos--114.

Mexican law enforcement officials on Sunday confirmed the arrest by federal authorities of a Tijuana businessman alleged to be a financial mastermind of the Arellano Felix drug cartel based in that city. The Mexican Attorney General's office said that Jesus Labra Aviles, the reputed godfather of the violent drug gang, had been transferred to Mexico City and was being held on drug-trafficking charges as well as weapons charges.

The capture last week of the brother of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, one of Mexico's most-wanted drug traffickers, has fed hopes among law enforcement authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that the audacious capo himself might soon be reapprehended. Head of the so-called Sinaloa drug mafia, Joaquin Guzman staged a dramatic escape from Guadalajara's high-security Puente Grande prison Jan. 19, apparently hidden in a laundry cart after prison video cameras were disabled.

The Mexican government announced Wednesday the capture of one of the country's most wanted fugitives, Alcides Ramon Magana, a major step in President Vicente Fox's crackdown on drug trafficking and corruption. Hours after Magana's arrest, an indictment against him was unsealed in U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New York, the same venue where U.S. charges against former Gov. Mario Villanueva of Quintana Roo state in southern Mexico were made public last month. The U.S.

Mexican police at a roadside checkpoint in Michoacan state arrested a taxi driver on drug charges after they found that he was carrying 20 pounds of opium in sealed cans of cling peaches in heavy syrup, prosecutors reported. Police said they became suspicious about the taxi driver's odd diet after they stopped him and found one loaf of bread and eight large cans of peaches in his car.

A top lieutenant of a drug-trafficking gang once known as the Gulf cartel and 19 of his subordinates have been arrested, a presidential spokeswoman said. Gilberto Garcia was arrested last week in a raid that also netted 35 rifles, 36 pistols and several grenades, said spokeswoman Martha Sahagun.

Emboldened by the recent arrest of an alleged top lieutenant of a suspected Tijuana drug cartel, U.S. law enforcement officials predicted at a news conference Thursday that the arrest of the brothers behind the murderous organization may be near. "They are more vulnerable than they have been in many, many years," said Bill Gore, agent in charge of the San Diego office of the FBI. "We have a good chance for some arrests." Gregory Vega, U.S.

In what could amount to the most serious blow ever against the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug gang, Mexican authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of a senior cartel figure who they say ran vast cross-border trafficking operations and directed the torture and murder of rivals that serve as the group's bloody hallmark.

The man believed to be the Medellin drug cartel's top cocaine trafficker in Mexico has been arrested at his headquarters in a fashionable Mexico City neighborhood, the attorney general's office said Saturday. Javier Pardo Cardona, a Colombian known as "the Uncle," reputedly has shipped more than 100 tons of cocaine through Mexico to the United States, according to the attorney general's office.

Mexican law enforcement officials on Sunday confirmed the arrest by federal authorities of a Tijuana businessman alleged to be a financial mastermind of the Arellano Felix drug cartel based in that city. The Mexican Attorney General's office said that Jesus Labra Aviles, the reputed godfather of the violent drug gang, had been transferred to Mexico City and was being held on drug-trafficking charges as well as weapons charges.