Mexico: Cartel Capo Captured

Security forces captured Mario Ramirez Trevino, the head of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel drug gang, this on Saturday morning near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The man known by the nicknames of X-20 or "The Bald One" was nabbed in in Tamaulipas state by a joint operation between the Mexican police and Attorney’s General Office according to Mexican Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sánchez.

Sánchez added at a Sunday press conference that two alleged bodyguards of Ramirez Trevino were also detained along with weapons used by the Mexican military and $38,000 Mexican pesos.

"The government has reinforced the security strategy with the aim of neutralizing any eventual actions by other criminal organizations with a presence in this region," Sánchez observed in anticipation of a possible backlash by the Gulf Cartel that reportedly controls key smuggling routes in eastern and northeastern Mexico.

The U.S. government had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Ramirez Trevino who was accused of trafficking cocaine and marijuana through several border crossings. 

Ramirez Trevino was the chief of the Gulf Cartel for nearly one year after the gang’s former boss, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, was arrested in September 2012.

This weekend’s actions come roughly a month after the head of the Zetas drug cartel was arrested in the northern state of Nuevo Laredo.  The Zetas were originally hired to provide protection to the once powerful Gulf Cartel.  Yet the former turned on the latter and would eventually take over most of their former employer's territory via a bloody turf war.