An alleged leader in one of Mexico's most powerful drug gangs was caught at a house near the border with California, Mexican officials said Monday, and US authorities said that the man's Tijuana-based gang "is moving toward its end."
Gilberto Higuera Guerrero was arrested before dawn Sunday in the border city Mexicali, Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha told a news conference.
He described Higuera as "a legend" in drug trafficking, and said his gang -- the Arellano Felix organization, sometimes known as the AFO -- was responsible for moving nearly half of all drugs across the US-Mexican border.
"This arrest solidifies the determination of the US and Mexican governments to finish the job of dismantling the AFO," US Drug Enforcement Administration Deputy Administrator Michele Leonhart said Monday.
The US State Department last year offered a US$2 million reward for Higuera's capture, though that was well short of the US$5 million it offered for his alleged bosses at the time: brother Javier and Eduardo Arellano Felix of Tijuana.
The DEA said the arrest was part of Operation United Eagles, a coordinated US-Mexico fugitive apprehension effort started in July last year.
Macedo said Higuera split with the Arellano Felix gang late last year to become the "principal operator" for rival drug boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of a Mazatlan-based gang that increasingly controls trafficking on Mexico's western border with the US.
The split led to a series of bloody confrontations between the two gangs in the Tijuana area, Macedo said.
Higuera was allegedly responsible for eliminating the cartel's rivals in the Mexicali area, and allegedly kidnapped, tortured, and murdered those rivals, the DEA said.
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