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Mexican drug kingpin caught

Mexico has captured the head of the powerful Juarez Cartel believed to move up to 4.5 tonnes of cocaine a month to the US, seizing the low-key former medical student in a shopping mall in the capital, officials said.

Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, alias "The Doctor," took control of the remnants of what was once Mexico's largest cartel late last year following violent internal split and operated it in a discreet, business-like fashion, in contrast to his more flamboyant predecessors.

"They act more like businessmen," Mexican Attorney Daniel General Cabeza de Vaca said of the cartel under Garcia Urquiza. "The prototype is a bit more discreet, a little more normal."

Mexico's top law enforcement official said Garcia Urquiza was responsible for as much as a fifth of the narcotics reaching America's streets from Mexico and called his capture "one of the most important strikes against drug trafficking in the country's history."

Garcia Urquiza was arrested by federal agents on Nov. 11 in a mall in southern Mexico City, but his capture wasn't announced by Mexican officials until Monday.

Inconspicuous

A senior US government official called Garcia Urquiza "a big, big target who basically remained under the radar screen."

"He could walk down the street and you would think he's a banker," said the US official, who said his name could not appear in print for security reasons.

Garcia Urquiza, his brother Jesus Omar, and Maria Nereida Garcia, a suspected cartel accountant who was arrested leaving her home with nearly US$3 million in cash, were among 11 people captured as part of an investigation dubbed "New Generation."

Cabeza de Vaca said the name reflects the fact that the suspects fall into a modern category of drug lords who live in relatively modest homes and drive ordinary vehicles without small armies of attention-drawing bodyguards.

"This was a mega-cartel, perhaps not as violent, perhaps operating in a different manner, but a mega-cartel," Cabeza de Vaca said at a crowded news conference.

Garcia Urquiza's emergence was so fast and his profile so low that his name does not appear on a list of 216 "most wanted" suspects posted on the Internet by the Mexican attorney general's office.

Under Garcia Urquiza's guidance, the gang smuggled much of its cocaine and marijuana into the US through corridors near Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas.

From there, the drugs went to distribution centers in Los Angeles, Chicago and other major US cities, with the profits carried back to Mexico for laundering at cartel-controlled currency exchange houses on the border and in Mexico City, Cabeza de Vaca said.

`Lord of the skies'

The Juarez Cartel was considered the country's largest drug trafficking organization under the leadership of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as "Lord of the Skies" because the gang flew planes packed with cocaine directly into US territory.

After Carrillo's death from botched plastic surgery to alter his appearance in July 1997, control of the cartel fell to his brother, Vicente. But other powerful smugglers have challenged Carrillo's leadership in recent years.

Defense Secretary General Gerardo Clemente Vega told the news conference that Carrillo's hold on the cartel began to crumble with the capture of feared hitman Arturo "El Chucky" Hernandez and 26 of his lieutenants in April 2003.

The split between Carrillo and the rival faction controlled by the other drug lords -- known as the Sinaloa cartel -- came to a head on Sept. 11 last year, when Vicente's brother, Rodolfo Carrillo, was shot and killed on orders of Guzman, Vega said.
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