Mexico hits out at drug cartels by seizing top gang leader

THE Mexican army and state security forces have captured José Antonio Yépez, a notorious drug gang leader blamed for helping to fuel a surge in violence that has severely tested the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president.

Widely known as “El Marro” (The Mallet), Yépez was captured early yesterday morning, according to the government and officials in the central state of Guanajuato, one of the principal flashpoints of gang violence.

“This is a tremendously successful blow for the government,” said Raúl Benítez, a professor and security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Yépez, the boss of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, based in Guanajuato, has been engaged in a bloody struggle for criminal control of the state with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the country’s most powerful groups.

His capture should deliver a boost to Mr López Obrador, who pledged to bring down record levels of violence plaguing the country when he took office in December 2018. Instead, homicides have continued to rise.

Security forces captured Yépez with five other people and rescued a kidnapped local businesswoman, state officials said. An “arsenal” of weapons was also secured during the raid.

Alfonso Durazo, the security minister, said Yépez would be taken to the Altiplano prison, a maximum-security facility where drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was housed before he escaped through a tunnel in 2015. He was recaptured the following year.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Durazo said Yépez had been arrested for suspected organised crime and fuel theft.