Mexico nabs criminal insurgency leader?

Houston Chronicle:

Mexican federal police Tuesday captured one of Mexico's most wanted drug thugs, a man known as among the most bloodthirsty killers in a vicious new generation of gangsters.

Captured without violence at a house in the Baja California port city of La Paz, Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed “El Teo”, stands accused of killing hundreds of rivals and kidnapping untold numbers of civilians in the past two years as he battled for control of narcotics smuggling and other criminal rackets in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

Garcia gained notoriety last January — and shocked even the most violence-hardened Mexicans — when officials accused him of ordering an underling to dissolve the bodies of some 300 of his victims in lye. His underling became famous nationwide as “the Pozolero,” or maker of pozole, a popular pork and hominy soup.

In presenting Garcia to the media in Mexico City, federal officials said he has business ties to the so-called Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico's largest organized crime group, and La Familia, a particularly bloody gang based in the central Mexican state of Michoacan.

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Garcia is “responsible for the majority of disappearances, kidnappings and executions in Tijuana,” the federal police said.

Federal police had been tracking Garcia for more than five months, Eduardo Pequeno, a senior official, said Tuesday. But while his arrest is significant, analysts place Garcia at least several pegs below crime kingpins such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — reputed leader of the Gulf Cartel — or Arturo Beltran-Leyva, who Mexican marines killed last month.

Police say Garcia began his criminal career as an assassin and smuggler for the Arrellano Felix brothers who controlled narcotics trafficking and other vices in Tijuana from the early 1990s until recently. He struck out on his own as the Arrellano Felix gang imploded following the killings or arrests of most of the brothers.

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Mexico is taking down some of the leaders of the criminal insurgency in recent weeks. It is too soon to say whether the cumulative success of these operations will lead to a lessening of violence, but the attrition will probably have an effect on the gangs ability to impose their will.

The photo of this guy that accompanies the story suggest he has not dodged too many tacos while he was on the run.