Mexico catches drug lord 'El Taliban'

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Mexico catches drug lord 'El Taliban'

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Mexico claims capturing Zetas drug lord Ivan Velazquez Caballero known as El Taliban.

27 September,2012 09:56 pm

Mexican officials say they have struck a major blow against a faction of the hyper-violent Zetas cartel, arresting one of the countrys most-wanted drug traffickers, Ivan Velazquez Caballero, known as El Taliban, and placing him on display in a Thursday morning press conference.Velazquez Caballero allegedly has been fighting a bloody internal battle with top Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, and officials have said the split was behind a recent surge in massacres and shootouts, particularly in northern Mexico.Masked marines displayed the burly, handcuffed suspect alongside two alleged accomplices and a table of guns and other contraband seized during his arrest.Velazquez Caballero is the third alleged cartel leader to be taken into custody this month. All are accused of leading factions of the Gulf Cartel or Zetas, former allies now feuding over valuable smuggling territory along the U.S. border. The alleged heads of the two main factions of the Gulf group, Maria Cardenas Guillen and Jorge Eduardo Costillo Sanchez, were also seized in Navy operations in northern Mexico.The Zetas are one of Mexicos two most powerful cartels. The head of the other, Sinaloa cartel head Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, remains free, and there have been far fewer arrests of his associates.Navy spokesman Jose Luis Vergara said marines acting on unspecified intelligence were conducting patrols in a neighborhood in the city of San Luis Potosi when they spotted a group of men leaving a house. When the men spotted the marines, they moved suspiciously back into the house, Vergara said, and marines followed, arresting Velazquez Caballero and two other men inside.Also known as Z-50, Velazquez Caballero has a 30 million peso ($2.3 million) reward on his head.The arrest could calm some of the brutal violence that has hit border cities like Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, in recent weeks, although Mexican officials said they believed fighting could restart in coming weeks or months as a fight begins for Velazquez Caballeros former territory.On Sept. 14, eight men were found shot to death and one hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo, territory officials say was traditionally controlled by Trevino Morales, alias Z-40. Analysts say 14 bullet-ridden bodies stuffed in a van in mid-August in San Luis Potosi were men loyal to El Taliban, and may have been left there as a warning by Trevino Morales underlings.Discussing recent fighting, a U.S. official in Mexico who could not be named for security reason said earlier this week that I think right now the uptick that Im seeing is between 40 and 50, referring to Trevino Morales and Velazquez Caballero by their Z aliases.The Zetas cartel takes its name from a police radio code in which Z means commander, and a number refers to rank.The Zetas have been known to be active in Coahuila state, but it was unclear whether the confrontations in Piedras Negras were related in any way to the capture of Velazquez Caballero.