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Mexican police capture Los Zetas leader

18 January 2011 22:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A leader and founder of the violent Zetas drug gang, who is one of Mexico’s most wanted fugitives, has been arrested, officials say, APA reports quoting presstv.ir website.

Flavio Mendez, nicknamed â€œThe Yellow One,â€ was arrested Monday in a police operation in a town north of Oaxaca, Mexico, according to CNN.

Mendez, 35, was one of the Mexico’s top 37 most wanted and was considered one of the most dangerous criminals, with a reward of 15 million pesos (USD 1.2 million) for his capture.

He was in charge of coordinating the drug and migrant traffic in southern Mexico, said Ramon Eduardo Pequeno, head of the federal police’s anti-narcotics division.

Los Zetas were founded in the late 1990s by a small group of Mexican and Guatemalan Army Special Forces deserters, and became the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel.

The group became an independent organization in February 2010 and is now an enemy of the Gulf Cartel. It is engaged in not only drug and migrant traffic but also kidnapping, extortion and fuel robberies.

President Felipe Calderon, who launched an offensive against drug cartels shortly after taking office in 2006, admitted that 2010, which saw 15,273 drug-related deaths, was "a year of extreme violence."