Mexico captures Zetas drug kingpin in another blow to cartels

Mexican security forces on 4 March arrested the leader of the bloody Zetas drug cartel, the second high-profile capture of a kingpin in the past week and a boost to President Enrique Pena Nieto's efforts to battle organised crime.

Omar Trevino, brother of captured ex-Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino, was caught by Mexican soldiers and the federal police in the northern city of Monterrey at around 4am local time on 4 March, a senior government official said.

Trevino and the Zetas have been blamed for many of the bloodiest atrocities carried out by Mexican gangs in a wave of violence that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since 2007.

Among the most notorious incidents pinned on the Zetas are the massacres of dozens of migrant workers, an arson attack on a Monterrey casino in 2011 that killed 52 and the dumping of 49 decapitated bodies near the same city in 2012.

Trevino's arrest came just days after the capture of Servando Gomez, leader of the Knights Templar drug gang, who was the most wanted capo still at large in Mexico.

Founded by army deserters in the late 1990s, the Zetas initially acted as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, based along the border with Texas and one of the oldest organised crime groups in Mexico. But the group struck out on its own in early 2010, setting off the most violent phase in Mexico's drug war.