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Mexican officials capture a most-wanted drug lord

MEXICO CITY - Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, a former schoolteacher who became one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords as head of the Knights Templar cartel, was captured early Friday by federal police, according to Mexican officials.

    by By Alberto Arce and Katherine Corcoran, Associated Press, Inquirer
    Published 

MEXICO CITY - Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, a former schoolteacher who became one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords as head of the Knights Templar cartel, was captured early Friday by federal police, according to Mexican officials.

Gomez was arrested in a house in Morelia, the capital of the western state of Michoacan, without a shot fired, according to a Mexican official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case. He said the operation was based on months of intelligence work.

Gomez, 49, led the Knights Templar, a quasi-religious criminal group that once ruled all of Michoacan, controlling politics and commerce and preaching a code of ethics around devotion to God and family, even as it murdered and plundered. Gomez evaded capture for more than a year after the federal government took over the state to try to restore order. The Mexican government had offered a $2 million reward for his capture. He also was wanted in the United States for conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine.

"With this arrest, the rule of law is strengthened in the country and we continue to advance toward a Mexico at peace," President Enrique Pena Nieto said on his Twitter account.

The arrest is a badly needed win for Pena Nieto, who has faced political and security crises since 43 college students disappeared last fall at the hands of local authorities in Guerrero state, and conflict-of-interest scandals emerged involving his personal home and that of the country's treasury secretary.

The week opened with film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu using his Oscar acceptance speech to urge fellow Mexicans to "find and build the government that we deserve." Then, Pope Francis warned drug-trafficking would cause the "Mexicanization" of Argentina and Donald Trump urged people not to do business with Mexico.

The arrest is the latest by Pena Nieto's three-year-old government, which has been aggressive in capturing top drug lords, including the biggest capo, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, in 2014. Of Mexico's top drug lords, only Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada of the Sinaloa Cartel remains at large.