Mexican drug boss El Coss captured by authorities

Mexican navy says it has detained the head of the Gulf Cartel, one of the country's most wanted drug bosses

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Mexico City,  Thursday 13 September 2012

Mexican navy personnel with a seized cocaine shipment. The Gulf Cartel
 has been weakened by a turf war with the Zetas. Photograph: Daniel
Aguilar/Reuters

The Mexican navy has said it has captured one of Mexico's most wanted drug bosses, the head of the Gulf Cartel, in what would mark a major victory in President Felipe Calderón's crackdown on organised crime.

The navy said it would give more details about the arrest of the man it believed to be Jorge Costilla, alias El Coss, when it parades him in front of the media early on Thursday.

A government security official said the man was detained in Tampico in northeastern Mexico without resistance. The US state department has a reward of up to $5m (£3m) for his capture.

The arrest comes barely a week after the Mexican navy captured senior Gulf Cartel member Mario Cárdenas, alias Fatso.

The Gulf Cartel has been weakened by a violent turf war with the Zetas, a gang formed by army deserters which acted as enforcers for the cartel before 2010.

It could also have political implications because top officials in the cartel's stronghold, the state of Tamaulipas, have been accused of taking money from local drug gangs.

"All these politicians who were getting money from the Gulf Cartel ought to be very worried now because this information is going to come to light," said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation.

He said he expected Costilla to be extradited to the US, and that his testimony could prove damaging to officials in Tamaulipas and neighbouring Veracruz state, which has also been dogged by allegations of corruption.

Tomás Yarrington, a governor of Tamaulipas between 1999 and 2005 for the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI), which will retake the national presidency in December, is wanted in Mexico for aiding drug gangs.

The FBI said Costilla is believed to have taken over the daily operations of the cartel after his former boss Osiel Cárdenas was arrested and jailed in Mexico in 2003.

He features prominently on a wanted list of 37 kingpins the Mexican government published in 2009. Well over 20 on that list have now been captured or killed.

Costilla's apparent capture could however lead to more violence with the weakening of the Gulf Cartel intensifying turf wars for control of Mexico's northeastern border with Texas between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas.

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