The leader of Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel has been captured. Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, 40, the famous and brutal leader of the Zetas drug cartel has been confirmed captured by a US federal official.
The capture of Treviño Morales represents the fist major hit to organized crime by a Mexican Administration as they have an endless struggle with high levels of violence.
Mexican media reported that Treviño Morales known as Z-40, was captured in Nuevo Laredo by Mexican marines. the marines intercepted a pickup truck on a dirt road with $2 million in cash. Nuevo Laredo has long been known as being the Zeta cartel’s base of operations.
Treviño Morales was taken into custody along with his bodyguard, an accountant as well as eight guns, government spokesman Eduardo Sanches told reporters. The charges against Treviño Morales include torture, kidnapping, murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.
Treviño Morales is only one of two most powerful cartel heads in Mexico. The Zetas cartel is of a corps of Special Forces defectors who splintered off forming their own cartel that spread across Mexico in 2010. The main activities of the cartel is “drug dealing, extortion and human trafficking” reports The Guardian .
Many of the worst atrocities of Mexico’s drug were authored by the Zetas cartel. They have left hundreds of bodies beheaded on roadsides or hanging from bridges. These actions have given this cartel the reputation of being probably the most ruthless cartels in Mexican history.
Miguel Angel Trevino Morales began his criminal career as a gofer for the Los Tejas gang . They controlled most of the crime in his hometown. Soon after joining he was promoted from washing cars and running errands to running drugs across the border and was recruited into the Matamoros-based Gulf cartel.
He rose to lead the Zetas cartel in 2012 after the leader Lazcano died in a shootout with the Mexican marines in Coahuila state.