Mexican security forces killed reputed Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug lords, in a spectacular, two-hour-long gunbattle on Friday in the northern border city of Matamoros.
Cardenas Guillen, also known as “Tony Tormenta” or “Tony the Storm,” is the brother of imprisoned former leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen and is the latest in a growing number of high-profile cartel leaders who have been captured or killed by the armed forces Mexican President Felipe Calderon has stationed throughout the country to battle drug traffickers.
The clashes on Friday across the border from Brownsville, Texas, also claimed the lives of four gunmen and three marines, according to the Mexican navy, and caused mayhem late into the night.
A soldier and a local reporter were also killed, the Mexican Defense Department said in a news release.
Cardenas Guillen, 48, is believed to have run the powerful cartel along with Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, moving cocaine and marijuana into the US. He had been indicted on drug-trafficking charges in the US, where authorities had offered a US$5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Mexican authorities offered a US$2 million reward and had him on their list of the nation’s most-wanted drug traffickers.
He was killed as the result of an operation that involved 150 marines, three helicopters and 17 military vehicles and took more than six months of intelligence work, the Mexican navy said in a statement.
The Matamoros newspaper El Expreso said on its Web site that reporter Carlos Guajardo was killed covering one of the shootouts.
The gunfire started as early as 11am in an upscale residential area in Matamoros, according to a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of retaliation.
The deceased trafficker’s brother Osiel Cardenas Guillen led the Gulf cartel until his arrest by Mexican authorities in a similarly violent shootout in Matamoros in 2003. Osiel was extradited to the US in 2007 and sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Texas court in February.
Northeastern Mexico, an area once controlled by the Gulf cartel, has seen an increase in violence due to a turf battle between the cartel and the Zetas, a drug gang formed by ex-military special forces originally used by the cartel as assassins. The violence has included broad-daylight shootouts and dozens of beheaded corpses dumped in public areas.
“Today, we have taken another meaningful step toward the dismantling of criminal groups that do so much damage to our country,” presidential security spokesman Alejandro Poire said.
Arturo Beltran Leyva, leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, died in a raid outside Mexico City on Dec. 16, last year. Mexican soldiers killed the Sinaloa cartel’s No. 3 capo, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, on July 29 of this year. On Aug. 30, federal police announced the capture of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “La Barbie,” and on Sept. 12 Mexican marines captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan, another presumed Beltran Leyva leader.
Authorities also reported a federal police operation on Friday afternoon in the historic city of Patzcuaro outside of Morelia that sparked incidents of kidnapping, vandalism and cars set afire on the road between the two cities in the western state of Michoacan, which is controlled by La Familia cartel.
Authorities in Guerrero state said on Friday relatives of 20 tourists from Michoacan who went missing in the resort city of Acapulco have identified the remains of five of them among 18 bodies found buried in a clandestine grave.
Earlier in the day, Mexican -authorities announced that eight members of a drug cartel were arrested in the torture and slaying of the brother of a former state attorney general.
The body of Mario Angel Gonzalez Rodriguez was found half buried in a house under construction in Chihuahua city after one of the suspects told officials where they could find him, Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas told a news conference. Gonzalez had been forced to appear at gunpoint in a video saying his sister worked for a rival gang.
More than 28,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence since Calderon launched a national assault on organized crime in late 2006. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a recent report that at least 22 Mexican journalists have been killed since December 2006.
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