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| Drug Kingpin Is Captured in Mexico Near Border | Drug Kingpin Is Captured in Mexico Near Border |
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| MEXICO CITY — The leader of one of Mexico’s most violent and feared drug organizations, the Zetas, was captured Monday in a city near the Texas border, an emphatic retort from the new government to questions over whether it would go after top organized crime leaders. | |
| The man, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, 40, who goes by the nickname Z-40 and is one of the most wanted people on both sides of the border, was detained by Mexican marines Monday morning, Mexican officials said at a news conference Monday night. | |
| They said that he and two other men were taken into custody without a shot being fired and that Mr. Treviño was carrying $2 million. | |
| Mr. Treviño has been wanted on drug charges in the United States, which has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. The Zetas operate primarily in Mexico, but their drug trafficking and organized crime violence have spread to other countries, and they have been known to recruit members in Texas and even to launder money through the quarter-horse industry in the United States. | |
| Started by former soldiers and once the enforcement arm of another large cartel, the gang is known in Mexico for its brutality, and its members’ calling card is often beheaded victims, body parts on highways and bodies hanged from bridges. | Started by former soldiers and once the enforcement arm of another large cartel, the gang is known in Mexico for its brutality, and its members’ calling card is often beheaded victims, body parts on highways and bodies hanged from bridges. |
| An American law enforcement official declined to provide details on the arrest, first reported by The Dallas Morning News on its Web site, until Monday night’s announcement by the Mexican government. | |
| Mr. Treviño is the highest-ranking and most-sought-after drug capo arrested by the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, whose aides had questioned the so-called kingpin strategy of his predecessor, which had emphasized high-profile arrests. The leadership voids, battles for turf and confrontations with Mexican forces all sent violence soaring in the past several years, with tens of thousands dead or missing. | |
| The new government had scoffed at the deep level of involvement of American law enforcement and security agencies in Mexico and placed new limits on their access, causing some American officials and analysts to wonder whether it would be deeply committed to confronting the drug gangs. | The new government had scoffed at the deep level of involvement of American law enforcement and security agencies in Mexico and placed new limits on their access, causing some American officials and analysts to wonder whether it would be deeply committed to confronting the drug gangs. |
| But the arrest will probably give doubters some hope, experts said. | |
| “The success of the effort is likely to help build trust after a period of rocky relations on public security issues,” said Andrew Selee, a Mexico scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. | |
| Some analysts said the arrest could lead to further fragmentation of the gangs, which would reduce their ability to threaten state authority but might uncork further waves of violence. | Some analysts said the arrest could lead to further fragmentation of the gangs, which would reduce their ability to threaten state authority but might uncork further waves of violence. |
| “This takedown will boost Peña Nieto several points in the polls, even as he has spurned talking about violence and the narco war,” said George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary who has written extensively on the drug gangs. “They fragment into ‘cartelitos,’ which, while dangerous, do not pose a threat to state security.” | “This takedown will boost Peña Nieto several points in the polls, even as he has spurned talking about violence and the narco war,” said George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary who has written extensively on the drug gangs. “They fragment into ‘cartelitos,’ which, while dangerous, do not pose a threat to state security.” |
| Mr. Treviño had been the second in command until the Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano was killed in a battle with Mexican marines in October. | |
| His body was carted off by armed men from a funeral home shortly afterward in an episode that turned triumph into embarrassment for Mexico’s president at the time, Felipe Calderón, whose tenure was marked by the killing or arrest of several cartel leaders except the most elusive: Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo, and the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, considered the largest and most powerful supplier of cocaine to the United States. | |
| A number of drug war analysts have said that Mr. Guzmán’s cartel, an older, more established organization less prone to shocking violence, was beginning to overtake the Zetas, the younger, less disciplined outfit that branched out more into extortion, kidnapping and migrant smuggling. |