Thread: Mexican Gang Kingpin Arrested

Mexican Gang Kingpin Arrested

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: January 18, 2011

MEXICO CITY — A man who helped start one of Mexico’s most notorious criminal organizations has been arrested, adding to the list of high-profile kingpins the police and the military have arrested or killed in the past year.

The federal police said they arrested Flavio Méndez Santiago — known as El Amarillo, or the yellow one — on Monday outside Oaxaca, the capital of Oaxaca State in southwest Mexico.

A police statement said Mr. Santiago, 35, directed operations in three southern states for the group, Los Zetas, which originated in the early 1990s as a collection of former soldiers serving as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel.

The Zetas are best known for beheading rivals and are suspected in the disappearance of dozens of migrants who investigators believe may have been victims of extortion as they made their way to the United States from Central and South America. The gang’s top leader, Heriberto Lazcano, remains at large.

Mr. Santiago — who is accused of killing several rivals, orchestrating a jailbreak and expanding the gang into Guatemala — was No. 29 on Mexico’s most wanted list. Officials said 20 of the 37 people on the list had been caught or killed in the past year.

The Zetas have battled the Gulf Cartel for control of smuggling routes in northeast Mexico, leading to some of the worst violence since President Felipe Calderón announced a crackdown on organized crime. In and around Monterrey, 12 people were killed Tuesday, the state police said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world ... .html?_r=1

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