MEXICO CITY (AFP) ? US law enforcement agencies aided the capture of the leader of Mexico's notorious La Familia drug cartel, the head of Mexico's national police force said Wednesday.
"The battle against this group was made possible in collaboration with various US agencies, including the US Drug Enforcement Agency," said Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas.
His remarks came a day after Mexican police arrested infamous drug outlaw Jose de Jesus Mendez Varga, 50, who was captured Tuesday thanks to "intensive intelligence work that has been ongoing since the end of May," said Rosas.
Mendez, who hailed from Tepalcatepec in Michoacan state, was seen as the brains behind La Familia, one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels.
Mexican officials said Mendez's arrest has decapitated the feared drug cartel, in what has been hailed here as a major breakthrough in Mexico's ongoing war against the narco-traffickers.
US drug czar Gil Kerlikowske also praised the arrest during a news conference in the Mexican capital.
"This important arrest shows yet again how President Calderon's heroic efforts to directly confront violent criminal elements are leading to real results in disrupting transnational crime," said Kerlikowske.
Ranked among Mexico's seven major drug cartels, La Familia is considered the country's top producer of synthetic drugs and has its stronghold in Mendez's home state of Michoacan.
The cartel came to international prominence in October 2006, when some of its members walked into a bar and rolled five severed heads onto a dance floor.
In another notorious incident, the gang challenged the federal government with a grenade attack in September 2008 that killed eight people during celebrations marking Mexico's independence day.
In July 2009, its members killed 16 police officers, and left 12 of the bodies piled by the side of a road.
The toll in suspected drug-related violence in Mexico has surpassed 37,000 since Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime in 2006.
Since 2006, authorities have killed or arrested several top cartel leaders, including Arturo Beltran Leyva, head of the cartel bearing his name, in December 2009; and Gulf cartel chief Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, alias "Tony Tormenta."
The arrest of Mendez, government security spokesman Alejandro Poire said Tuesday, had "destroyed the remaining command structure" of the Familia cartel.
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