Mexico nabs alleged mastermind of reporter Breach’s killing

Federal police arrested a man early Monday suspected of ordering the March murder of Miroslava Breach, one of the highest-profile journalists slain this year amid a wave of such killings in Mexico.

The National Security Commission said in a statement that the 43-year-old suspect was detained along with two others in a morning operation in the town of Bacobampo, Sonora state.

It identified him as the presumed head of a criminal gang with a strong presence in parts of Sonora and Chihuahua states.

Chihuahua Gov. Javier Corral alleged in a tweet that the man was the “intellectual author” of Breach’s murder.

Breach, 54, was a respected correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada and also contributed to other papers in the cities of Chihuahua and Juarez. She was shot eight times outside her garage in Chihuahua city the morning of March 23.

A rolled-up cardboard message was reportedly left at the scene that said “for being a tattletale.”

At least 10 journalists have been murdered this year in the country, one of the world’s deadliest for the profession.