Xinhua: Mexico catches U.S.-born drug lord "La Barbie"

[Twoller]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13470657.htm

Mexico catches U.S.-born drug lord "La Barbie"

Image released by Policia Federal de Mexico on Aug. 30 shows major drug trafficker Edgar Valdez, Villareal. Federal police caught Valdez in a residential area near Mexico City, the government said. (Xinhua)

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Mexican authorities told Xinhua Monday they have captured "La Barbie" Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born criminal with a long career leading the nation's drug cartels.

An official with the Attorney General's Office (PGR) confirmed the arrest, but said she was not authorized to give further details.

Mexican newspapers reported Valdez was arrested by federal police close to the border between southern Mexican states Morelos and Guerrero.

Valdez had worked for the Sinaloa Cartel and its breakaway group the Beltrn Leyva cartel, which was dismantled in a recent police operation.

He is also wanted by a federal court in southern U.S. city Atlanta for smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. soil between 2004 and 2006.

Valdez's main crime partner, Jose Gerardo Alvarez, alias El Indio, was captured in April.

And also at the Canadian National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Mex...302/story.html

Mexicans hope drug lord’s arrest may be turning point

MEXICO CITY — Mexico paraded one of its most violent drug lords on Tuesday after a police raid that President Felipe Calderon’s government hopes will mark a breakthrough in its campaign against powerful cartels.

But the capture of Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, a Texas-born 37-year-old, may do little to halt the flow of drugs into the United States or staunch bloodshed in Mexico’s most violent areas, many of them along the U.S. border.

....

Officials say Valdez, as a leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel based in central Mexico, trafficked a tonne of cocaine each month and was responsible for “several dozen” murders.

He is believed to be behind merciless beheadings of rivals, torture and mutilation of victims, and for ordering the slaughter of the family of a marine who took part in the killing of his former boss Arturo Beltran Leyva in December.

But Valdez’s operations were small compared to Mexico’s top gangs — the Sinaloa, Gulf and Juarez cartels — which smuggle the majority of the 140 tonnes of cocaine the United Nations estimates that Mexico exports to the United States every year.

....

Valdez had been a top contender to head the Beltran Leyva cartel since its boss was killed by soldiers in December.

Born into a middle-class family, Valdez is said to have played American football at school and developed a taste for luxury before coming to Mexico to work in the drug trade.

Anchor baby? Anyone know?