Reputed drug kingpin killed in Mexico shootout

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican federal official says reputed drug cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen has been killed in shootout in the border city of Matamoros.

Federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire says Cardenas Guillen was killed Friday in a clash with marines.

Poire says three gunmen and two marines were also killed.

Cardenas Guillen is allegedly a top leader of the powerful Gulf Cartel.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Eight members of a drug cartel were arrested in the torture and slaying of the brother of a former Mexican state attorney general, federal police announced Friday. The man had been forced to appear at gunpoint in a video saying his sister worked for a rival gang.

The body of Mario Gonzalez was found half buried in a house under construction in Chihuahua city after one of the suspects told officials where they could find him, federal police commissioner Facundo Rosas said at a news conference. He said the body showed signs of torture.

The suspect said a man known as "The Vulture" ordered the group to kidnap Mario Angel Gonzalez Rodriguez, Rosas said. The men are suspected of working for the Sinaloa cartel.

Gonzalez, an attorney, was kidnapped from his office Oct. 21 — less than three weeks after his sister Patricia Gonzalez stepped down as Chihuahua state's attorney general due to a change of governor.

Days after the kidnapping, a video was posted on YouTube (News - Alert) showing Gonzalez handcuffed and surrounded by five masked men pointing guns at him. Prodded by an interrogator, he blamed his sister for several notorious killings in the state and said both he and she had aided "La Linea," a drug gang tied to the Juarez cartel.

Rosas said some of the men arrested had appeared in the video, which he said was shot at a safe house for the Sinaloa cartel.

Cartels have increasingly taken to releasing video clips of abducted police, officials and regular citizens admitting to crimes that aided rivals of the kidnappers. In several cases, the subject of the video has been found dead shortly afterward.

Federal police paraded the suspects — some with bruised faces — before television cameras on Friday. The announcement of the arrests came a day after the federal Attorney General's Office said it was opening an investigation into the case.

Gonzalez was attorney general during the most violent peacetime period in the history of Chihuahua state. A nearly three–year–old turf war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels has made Chihuahua the deadliest state in Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez, on the border, one of the world's most dangerous cities.

In one of the worst drug–gang attacks, gunmen burst into two homes in a Ciudad Juarez neighborhood last month and opened fire on family and friends celebrating a 15–year–old's birthday. A 21–year–old man wounded in the attack died Friday, bringing the massacre's death toll to 15, according to a statement from the Chihuahua attorney general's office.

In the video, the questioner prompted Mario Gonzalez into saying that his sister ordered several killings in Ciudad Juarez, where drug–gang violence has claimed more than 6,500 lives over the past three years. Among those, he said, was the 2008 killing of Armando Rodriguez, a crime reporter for the newspaper El Diario de Juarez.

Rosas said one of the suspects told police that Gonzalez was beaten on his feet and ankles before the video was made. The suspect also said Gonzalez was reading from a script prepared by his captors when he named state police officers and government officials supposedly in the pay of La Linea, Rosas said.

According to the suspect, Gonzalez was strangled and buried the day after the video was made, Rosas said.

Several of the detainees said they kidnapped and killed Gonzalez on orders from a Chihuahua city police officer loyal to the Sinaloa cartel, Rosas added.

In a separate development, federal police also announced the arrest of a Colombian who allegedly was a major cocaine supplier to the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Harold Mauricio Poveda, alias "The Rabbit," was captured in Mexico City after an investigation that included information from U.S. law enforcement agencies, said Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti–narcotics division of the federal police.

Pequeno said Poveda is wanted in New York and Washington on cocaine trafficking charges.

Poveda does not appear on DEA or FBI wanted lists. A U.S. law enforcement official confirmed Poveda is wanted in U.S., but said the indictment is sealed. The official was not authorized to comment publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press (News - Alert) on condition of anonymity.

The Beltran Leyva cartel, which controlled trafficking routes in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco and the region south of Mexico City, has suffered the biggest blows in President Felipe Calderon's nearly four–year–old escalation of the drug war.

Most of the gang's leaders have been killed or arrested. Kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a December 2009 shootout with marines and U.S.–born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a reputed capo known as "La Barbie," was captured in August.

Poveda, 37, started working with the Beltran Leyva gang in 1998 as a liaison with Colombian cartels, Pequeno said. He allegedly smuggled as much as five tons of cocaine a month into Mexico with fast boats and makeshift submarines.

Poveda told police he arrived in Mexico in 1993 as a migrant trying to reach the United States, Pequeno said. He ended up staying in Mexico and by 1995 had started dealing drugs in nightclubs in the capital, Pequeno said.

Three others — Colombian national Juliana Lopez and two Mexican men — were arrested with Poveda, Pequeno said. They were found with two AR–15 rifles, a handgun and drugs.