MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities said Thursday they had arrested the local leader of the dreaded Zetas drug cartel along with seven other suspects in the Caribbean beach resort of Cancun.
The defense ministry said in a statement that Victor Manuel Delgado Medrano, "a member of the Zetas criminal organization and head of the territory of the city of Cancun," had been captured.
It said a woman, assumed to have been kidnapped, was freed during the operation, which also uncovered several weapons.
The ministry did not provide further information on how the men were caught or what charges would be brought against them.
The Zetas gang was founded in the 1990s by elite soldiers who quit to become hit men for the Gulf cartel, with which they are now at war over lucrative distribution routes.
Mexico has been convulsed by drug violence, with nearly 35,000 people killed in the four years since President Felipe Calderon launched a massive military operation to try to wipe out the cartels.
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