Mexico Zetas Drug Cartel Leader Captured

Mexican marines have captured the leader of the brutal Zetas drug cartel, officials have announced.

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, known as El Cuarenta or Z-40, was caught before dawn in Nuevo Laredo in northern Mexico, government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told reporters.

Trevino Morales, 40, was in a truck with his bodyguard and an accountant when he was arrested on a dirt road in the town on the US border.

Eight guns and $2m (£1.3m) in cash was seized from the vehicle, Mr Sanchez said.

Trevino Morales has been charged with murder, torture, kidnapping and other crimes.

Trevino Morales was captured in the border town of Nuevo Laredo

His capture is a victory for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who came into office promising to drive down crime levels, but has struggled to do so.

The Zetas, founded by deserters from an elite army unit, have carried out some of Mexico's bloodiest massacres, biggest jail breaks and fiercest attacks on authorities.

The gang earned its notoriety for brutality by becoming the first to publicly display their beheaded rivals - most infamously two police officers in April 2006 in the resort city of Acapulco.

A Mexican marine with a vast Zetas cache of arms, cash and drugs

The severed heads were found on spikes outside a government building with a message signed "Z'' that said: "So that you learn to respect."

Trevino Morales took control of the Zetas following the death of one of its founders, Heriberto "The Executioner" Lazcano, in October 2012.

Mexican troops killed Lazcano in a gunfight in the northern state of Coahuila.

But just hours later, gunmen burst into a funeral home and stole his body, which has never been recovered.

The body of Lazcano was stolen by armed gang members

Trevino Morales' brutality is well-known among his men, his rivals and Nuevo Laredo citizens.

One technique favoured by Trevino Morales was the "guiso", or stew, which saw enemies placed in 55-gallon (250-litre) drums and burned alive.

Others who crossed the commander would be beaten with wooden planks.

"If you get called to a meeting with him, you're not going to come out of that meeting," said a US law-enforcement official in Mexico City, who spoke to AP news agency on condition of anonymity.

Trevino Morales, 40, is expected to be succeeded by his brother, Omar, a former low-ranking turf boss seen as far weaker than his older brother.

Marines caught nine Zetas members in a bust in October last year

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales began his career as a teenager in the Los Tejas gang, which controlled most crime in Nuevo Laredo, his home town.

He soon graduated from washing cars and running errands to running drugs across the border, and was recruited into the Gulf cartel, which absorbed Los Tejas.

Originally, the Zetas acted as the armed wing of the Gulf cartel, but the two groups split in recent years, sparking brutal turf wars in northern Mexico.

The US State Department had offered a $5m (£3.3m) reward for Trevino Morales, while Mexico had a £1.5m bounty.

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