Maxico, March 08: At least 18 Mexico people have been killed in an exchange of gunfire between drug-dealing rival gangs, as the North American nation is inundated with lethal narcotics-related crime.
The Tamaulipas state government said it arrested two alleged gang leaders, and brought money laundering charges against a member of a major drug-dealer family, AFP reported on Tuesday.
The Public Safety Ministry said federal police arrested Marcos Carmona, alias “El Cabrito,” an alleged leader of the Zetas cartel.
Mexican authorities also nabbed Benjamin Flores Reyes, alias “El Padrino,” believed to be a key member of the Independent Acapulco Cartel.
Vicente Carrillo Leyva, son of the late infamous drug lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who has faced fresh money laundering charges by authorities, was previously acquitted of drug charges.
Until his death in 1997, Fuentes led the powerful Juarez Cartel — currently led by his son — which has been fighting with the Sinaloa cartel for control of the key drug route into the neighboring US city of El Paso for more than three years.
In the past year, Tamaulipas, which shares a border with the US state of Texas, has witnessed surging drug violence that has claimed more than 34,600 lives since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a massive military crackdown on the narco-gangs in 2006.
As demand for illegal drugs remains high in the United States, the Mexican government’s counter-drug trafficking operations have had little effect in stopping the violence, which has been rife due to the cartels’ battle over profitable trade routes to the country’s northern neighbor.
—-Agencies