Mexican troops arrested a leading member of one of the country's two main drug gangs and seized nearly a million dollars, a victory in President Felipe Calderon's fight against traffickers.
Soldiers detained Alfredo Beltran Leyva on Sunday in a plush area of the northwestern city of Culiacan, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said.
Beltran Leyva and three other people arrested with him were carrying about $900,000 in cash in two suitcases. "Among his key functions was transporting drugs, money laundering and bribing officials," the spokeswoman said on Monday.
Prosecutors say Beltran Leyva is a lieutenant of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man and the head of an alliance of smugglers based in Sinaloa state.
The United States, whose Congress is debating sending surveillance and detection equipment to help Mexico's year-old drug crackdown, praised the arrest, with Ambassador Tony Garza calling it a "significant victory."
The Sinaloa gang is in a bitter fight with the rival Gulf Cartel, based south of Texas, for control of smuggling routes.
More than 2,500 people died in gangland-style killings last year as Calderon launched an army crackdown on drug cartels. Many of the killings were gruesome, with victims often tortured or beheaded and their bodies left in the street.
Beltran Leyva, who has four brothers also accused of being powerful traffickers, was the head of two teams of hitmen known as "The Baldies" and "The Blondies" in two western states.
