Juarez Drug Lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes captured

Mexican officials say the alleged leader of the Juarez drug cartel has been arrested in the northern city of Torreon.

Carrillo Fuentes heads the cartel founded by his late brother, Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Mexico had offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.2 million) for his arrest.

The two officials who revealed the information insisted on speaking anonymously.

Carrillo Fuentes, better known as “The Viceroy” or “The General,” took over control of the Juarez drug cartel after his brother Amado, nicknamed “The Lord of the Skies,” died in 1997 in a botched cosmetic surgery. Amado got his nickname by flying planeloads of drugs into the United States.

Vicente carried on trafficking on a more modest scale, but in a much more violent era for the cartel. Based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Carrillo Fuentes led the gang in a battle for control of the area’s trafficking routes with interlopers from the Sinaloa cartel, engaging in a multi-year war that cost at least 8,000 lives.

The area is estimated to be the route of passage for as much as 70 percent of the cocaine entering the United States.

Immediately after his brother’s death, there were doubts among cartel members about Carrillo Fuentes’ ability to lead, according to a profile provided to The Associated Press by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office.

“He was not believed to possess the leadership and decision-making skills,” according to the document, noting this created internal tensions in the group.

In the end, he was able to consolidate what the profile called “an iron grip” on the cartel, while leading it in new directions. As demand for cocaine declined in the United States, the gang took to selling more of it in Mexico.

“He overcame the initial perceptions about his personality,” the document said.

Carrillo Fuentes was wanted by the FBI for capital murder, drug trafficking and money laundering, among other charges. The agency offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

According to the FBI, the Carrillo Fuentes organization, also known as the “Juarez Drug Cartel” is accused of importing “numerous tons of cocaine and marijuana from Mexico into the United States over the Ciudad Juarez/El Paso border annually.”

The FBI website describes why Carrillo Fuentes is wanted in the U.S.:

“On August 16, 2000, a federal grand jury from the Western District of Texas returned a 46-count indictment against Fuentes charging him with continuing criminal enterprise, importation and possession with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana, and conspiracy to import and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana. The indictment also charges Fuentes with money laundering, tampering with a witness, nine counts of ordering the intentional killing of individuals to prevent communication of information to United States law enforcement officers, as well as ten counts of murder in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise.”

Carrillo Fuentes was allegedly protected by an “extremely violent” group of former soldiers, and the Juarez cartel pioneered the use of targeted car-bomb attacks on police.

Top drug cartel captures or killings in recent years in Mexico:

– Oct. 9, 2014: Mexican officials confirm arrest of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, purported leader of Juarez cartel.

– Oct. 1, 2014: Mexico announces capture of Hector Beltran Leyva, alleged head of the Beltran Leyva cartel. Authorities say Beltran Leyva, alias “The H” and “The Engineer,” assumed leadership of the group after his brother Arturo was killed in gunbattle with troops in 2009.

– Feb. 22, 2014: Mexican and U.S. officials catch the world’s most powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in the Pacific beach resort of Mazatlan.

– July 15, 2013: Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias “Z-40,” alleged leader of the brutal Zetas cartel, is captured in northern Mexico.

– Oct. 7, 2012: Mexican marines kill Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, alias “El Lazca,” a founder and top leader of the Zetas. His body is later stolen from a funeral home. Trevino Morales takes over the Zetas.

– Oct. 6, 2012: Marines arrest alleged Zetas regional leader Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo, suspected of involvement in massacres and the killing of U.S. citizen David Hartley in 2010 on Falcon Lake, which straddles Mexico’s border with Texas.

– Sept. 12, 2012: Marines capture purported top leader of the Gulf Cartel, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias “El Coss.”

– Dec. 9, 2010: Authorities say Federal Police officers kill Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel, during a gunfight in the village of El Alcalde. His body is never recovered, and rumors persist that Moreno, known as “the Craziest One,” is still alive.

– July 29, 2010: Mexican soldiers raid a house in the town of Zapopan and kills Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, one of the top leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.

– Dec. 16, 2009: Marines kill Arturo Beltran Leyva, leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, in a shootout in the resort city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.