Another 11 Zetas Captured in Northern Mexico

MONTERREY, Mexico – Mexican authorities announced the arrest of another 11 suspected members of the Los Zetas drug cartel in the violence-plagued northeastern state of Nuevo Leon.

They were detained a few hours prior to the capture of 18 purported Zetas enforcers in that state after a gun battle.

The Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office paraded the group of 11 detainees – a cell of five women and six men accused of kidnappings and homicides – before the media on Friday, a day after they were arrested in the city of San Nicolas de los Garza while attempting to collect a ransom.

Among the detainees was 25-year-old Jaime Cabrera Escalante, suspected Zetas chief in San Nicolas, part of the metropolitan area of Monterrey, the state capital.

The cell targeted business people and demanded an average of 3 million pesos (some $221,000) for their release, Nuevo Leon Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said Friday at a press conference.

Authorities seized four vehicles, four assault rifles and two handguns from the suspects, who have confessed to at least four kidnappings and two homicides thus far, he added.

Later, army soldiers captured 18 suspected Zetas members at a bar in a town 30 kilometers (18 miles) northwest of Monterrey after a shootout early Friday, a spokesperson for the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency said.

A young man who was standing watch outside the bar where the purported Zetas members had gathered to watch a soccer match on television was killed in the exchange of gunfire.

The suspected Zetas chief in four rural municipalities of Nuevo Leon, which borders the United States, was among the 18 detainees. Authorities identified the man by his alias, “el Chicho.â€