Thread: Top Juarez drug cartel leader arrested

Top Juarez drug cartel leader arrested, Mexico authorities announce

Vicente Carrillo Leyva, son of the late kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, is arrested in Mexico City.

By Ken Ellingwood
11:35 AM PDT, April 2, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City --

Federal authorities today announced the capture of Vicente Carrillo Leyva, a suspected top leader of a family-run drug gang based in Ciudad Juarez and one of the country's most-wanted figures.

Federal law enforcement officials said Carrillo Leyva, the 32-year-old son of deceased drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, was arrested Wednesday while exercising in a wealthy neighborhood of Mexico City.

Full coverage of Mexico's drug warThe younger Carrillo was listed among the country's 24 most-wanted drug suspects last week when the federal government offered $2-million rewards for each. Authorities described him as an heir to the organization once led by his father, who was known as the "Lord of the Skies" for his use of aircraft to move drugs.

The announcement came as U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were preparing to meet outside Mexico City this afternoon with top Mexican security officials to discuss how to staunch southbound smuggling of weapons to drug cartels from the United States.

The arrest of Carrillo Leyva represents a significant victory for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's 2-year-old war against drug traffickers. But it leaves in place the younger Carrillo's uncle, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, known as "the Viceroy," as leader of one of the four largest trafficking organizations in Mexico.

MULTIMEDIA GALLERY
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTSCarrillo Leyva, considered the Juarez group's No. 2 figure, helped manage the gang and launder proceeds from its drug sales, authorities said.

Officials said Carrillo Leyva was living in Mexico City under an assumed name: Alejandro Peralta Alvarez. Authorities said they were able to find him in part because his wife, Celia Karina Quevedo Gastelum, kept her name.

Carrillo is among a crop of younger, university-educated narcojuniors emerging as leaders of Mexican organizations that are bound primarily by family ties. He was paraded before news cameras in a white Abercrombie & Fitch sweatsuit and stylish glasses -- a far cry from the narco archetype decked out in cowboy boots and oversized jewel-studded belt buckles.

Two weeks ago, Mexican authorities arrested the 33-year-old son of Sinaloa-based trafficker Ismael Zambada in another wealthy section of Mexico City. He was presented to reporters looking chic in jeans, dress shirt, jacket and fashionably stubbly face.

Marisela Morales Ibañez, who heads the organized-crime unit of the Mexican attorney general's office, said Carrillo Leyva's capture reflects the "absolute commitment of the federal government to combat all organized crime groups that attack the peace, tranquillity and security of the population."

The Juarez gang has been locked in a vicious turf war with a band of traffickers based in the northwestern state of Sinaloa and led by Joaquin Guzman, the country's most-wanted fugitive.

The bloodletting left about 1,600 people dead in Ciudad Juarez last year. Violence continued in the border city during the first two months of 2009 but has dipped since Calderon sent 5,000 more troops and hundreds of additional federal police there in recent weeks.

At least 10,000 people have died nationwide since Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime groups soon after taking office in December 2006.

The visit of Napolitano and Holder comes amid a flurry of diplomacy between the two neighbors. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spent two days in Mexico last week in a visit that focused heavily on border security. President Obama is scheduled to come on April 16 and 17.

Last week, Napolitano unveiled a border-security plan aimed at attacking the cartels and keeping serious violence from spilling into the United States. That plan envisions sending hundreds more federal agents and intelligence analysts to the border region.

Clinton said the White House would seek funding to provide Mexican authorities with $80 million worth of Black Hawk helicopters. Some of those funds would come out of $700 million already approved under the three-year security aid plan for Mexico known as the Merida initiative.

U.S. and Mexican military officials have discussed stepped-up cooperation against the drug-trafficking groups, although Calderon this week ruled out joint military operations on his country's soil.

U.S. lawmakers have proposed stepping up aid to Mexico, which already was to receive a total of $1.4 billion under the Merida program, in its second year.

Mexican officials have urged U.S. authorities to clamp down on the smuggling of drug money and thousands of assault rifles and other weapons that fortify the cartels' arsenals.

U.S. law enforcement estimates that Mexican and Colombian traffickers make $18 billion to $39 billion in the United States each year -- much of it smuggled back into Mexico.

In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says 90% of weapons seized in Mexico can be traced to the United States. U.S. authorities hope to get Mexico to make more use of the computerized tracking system, known as e-Trace, by inaugurating a Spanish version.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 9086.story

One by one the top guys are being taken down.

To bad they get replaced so soon.