Mexico nabs ‘El Marro’, fuel theft king blamed for surge in drug violence
MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) Mexican security forces yesterday captured Jose Antonio Yepez, a notorious drug gang leader and fuel thief blamed for fanning a sharp surge in violence that has severely tested the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Known as “El Marro” (The Mallet), Yepez was arrested in the early hours of Sunday by soldiers and state officials during a raid on a house in Guanajuato, a central state that has become the main flashpoint of record gang violence, authorities said.
“This is a tremendously successful blow for the government,” said Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Boss of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, a Guanajuato-based outfit, Yepez has been engaged in a bloody struggle for supremacy in the state with the Jalisco New Generation
Cartel (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent gangs.
Yepez, 40, is the highest profile narco arrested so far under Lopez Obrador, who pledged to bring down record levels of violence plaguing Mexico when he took office in December 2018.
Instead, homicides have further increased, and last October the Lopez Obrador administration suffered serious embarrassment when it botched the detention of Ovidio Guzman, a son of incarcerated kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Guanajuato’s government said security forces captured Yepez and five other suspected gang members in a village called Franco Tavera in the Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas municipality, a few miles north of where the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel was born.
During the swoop on two buildings, soldiers freed a local businesswoman who had been kidnapped and seized a cache of weapons including a grenade launcher, the Defense Ministry said.
Three people were found in the second property, including a sixth suspected gangster.
News network Milenio broadcast a video of the night-time arrest of Yepez, who was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers. Flanked by several soldiers, Yepez gave his full name and age before also identifying himself as “Marro.”