Americas

Americas

La Familia Mexican drug cartel founder killed

29 December 2015 16:28 (UTC +04:00)

Rosales Mendoza's body was found along with three other bodies by a motorway in western Mexico.

All four victims had been shot dead. Forensic experts said the four had been tortured and killed somewhere else before their bodies were dumped in the car park. It is not clear who may be behind the killing.

Rosales Mendoza, 52, was one of the founders of La Familia Michoacana, a drug cartel with a reputation for extreme violence which claims to defend family and religious values.

He was on the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)'s most wanted list.

Rosales Mendoza is believed to have got involved in drug trafficking in the 1980s in the western state of Michoacan.

In 2000, he founded his own organisation, which he named La Familia Michoacana (The Michoacan Family) after the state that was his power base.