Mexican police arrest associates of "boy hit man"
Published January 28, 2011
FoxNews.com

Molina and Antonio M. were apprehended in Jiutepec, Morelos, by army troops and agents from the federal Attorney General's Office

Two suspected associates of the "boy hit man" captured last month as he preparing to leave the country were arrested Thursday in the central state of Morelos, Mexican official sources told Efe.

Giovanni Molina Ortiz, 18, and 15-year-old Antonio M. are accused of being "falcons," or lookouts, for the South Pacific drug cartel.

"Boy hit man" Edgar Jimenez Lugo, 14, is said to have carried out executions on behalf of the same criminal outfit.

Molina and Antonio M. were apprehended in Jiutepec, Morelos, by army troops and agents from the federal Attorney General's Office, one source said.

Jimenez Lugo, alias "El Ponchis" (The Cloak), was arrested early last month with two of his sisters at the airport in Xochitepec, Morelos.

The three were planning to travel to the northern city of Tijuana and from there to neighboring San Diego, California, where they have family.

The search for El Ponchis began in October after soldiers arrested six suspected members of the South Pacific cartel. One of the suspects told authorities that the most brutal assassin in the group was Jimenez Lugo, released earlier by the troops because he was a minor.

After his arrest, Jimenez Lugo reportedly confessed to beheading four victims, but insisted the cartel forced him to carry out the murders.

Morelos, which is close to Mexico City, has been caught up in a turf war between rival drug cartels and the state capital, Cuernavaca, was the scene of a dramatic December 2010 battle that ended with the death of kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva.

More than 34,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon militarized the struggle against Mexico's cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Many victims of the gangland violence have been found decapitated and hung from bridges, as the drug mobs seek more and more grisly ways to intimidate their rivals.

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