Mexico nabs Sinaloa cartel leader

MEXICO CITY—Mexican law enforcement authorities Tuesday said they had arrested an accused drug gang leader reputedly involved in a bloody war for control of the Sinaloa cartel formerly headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, now jailed in the United States.

The attorney general’s office said its agents and the military had arrested a suspect identified as Damaso N, “presumed leader of a criminal organization.”

Mexican media accounts later identified the suspect as Damaso Lopez, a former associate of Guzman known as “El Licenciado”—roughly, the Graduate. Lopez was arrested in an upscale district in Mexico City.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, in a Twitter message, lauded “the detention of another key objective in the battle against criminality.”

Lopez is reported to have been involved in a dispute with Guzman’s sons and their allies for control of the powerful Sinaloa cartel now that Guzman in custody in the United States awaiting trial on various charges. The turf battle for the cartel’s myriad holdings has led to violent gun battles in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Lopez reportedly is suspected of long-time links to Guzman and the cartel. As far back as 2001, Lopez was suspected of aiding Guzman in the first of two sensational breakouts from high-security Mexican prisons.

Guzman, at one point considered one of the world’s top drug kingpins, was recaptured in January 2016 in Mexico and was extradited to the United States on Jan. 19 of this year. Guzman faces charges at U.S. District Court in New York including murder, drug trafficking and money laundering.