Mexican police on Sunday captured a top leader and founder of the feared Zetas drug cartel wanted in connection with the murder of a US federal agent, authorities said.
However, previous high-profile arrests have done little to stem the violent crime wave sweeping the country, and on Monday, a day after the capture, 13 gunmen were killed in a firefight with Mexican troops in the volatile northeast.
Police arrested Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, also known as “El Mamito,” on Sunday in central Mexico as he was on his way to his mother’s house in his home state of Campeche in the south, the Mexican Security Ministry said.
Rejon Aguilar, the feared cartel’s third-ranking leader, is wanted in connection with a Feb. 14 attack that killed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata and seriously wounded his partner.
The US government has offered a US$5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those responsible for the killing.
The capture “is a high-level blow to the structure of the criminal group,” Mexican national security spokesman Alejandro Poire said on Monday.
With the latest arrest, the last remaining original Zetas founder at large is group leader Heriberto Lazcano, Poire said.
According to his criminal file, “El Mamito” joined the Mexican army in 1993 and three years later was recruited into an elite team organized to fight Zapatista guerrillas in the south.
In 1999, Rejon Aguilar and 14 other military deserters formed the Zetas, a group hired to work as hitmen for the powerful Gulf cartel. The Zetas later split from their employers, sparking a bloody turf war.
The Zetas were among the first Mexican crime syndicates to use heavy weaponry and full-scale military tactics, reportedly amassing an arsenal that includes grenade launchers and even ground-to-air missiles.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS