(Adds arms haul, paragraph 8)

By Jason Lange

MEXICO CITY, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Mexican federal police on Friday captured Jaime "The Hummer" Gonzalez, a leader of the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel, and flew him to the capital after a shootout near the U.S.-Mexican border, police said.

Gonzalez, a deserter from the Mexican army and a founding member of the drug gang's feared execution squad known as the Zetas, was caught in the city of Reynosa near McAllen, Texas in a carefully planned police operation.

Security forces burst in on Gonzalez in a house and nabbed him without firing a shot, police said.

But a group of armed men brazenly tried to free him from police custody near the Reynosa airport.

After a lengthy gun battle, police fought off the attackers and transferred Gonzalez to the capital under heavily armed guard.

Officials distributed images of a gold-plated gun and bundles of cash they said belonged to Gonzalez, who is also wanted in the United States for drug trafficking.

It is the latest in a string of high-profile drug arrests since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and deployed thousands of troops and federal police to drug hot spots around the country.

On Thursday, the army captured a massive arsenal of weapons believed to belong to the Gulf cartel that included over 400 pistols, machine guns and sniper rifles, half a million bullets, nearly 300 grenades, a rocket launcher and explosives.

FORMER SOLDIER

Gonzalez, who left the army in 1999, was one of the original former soldiers who switched sides in the drug war to work as a personal security guard for Osiel Cardenas, the head of the Gulf cartel.

After rising in the ranks of the organization he became one of Mexico's most wanted men, and police say he was in charge of cartel operations in eight states and Mexico City.

Gonzalez has masterminded jail breaks of fellow drug traffickers and is connected to the disappearance of four federal investigators, a spokesman from the security ministry said.

He is believed to be close to the current leader of the Zetas, Heriberto "The Executioner" Lazcano, who helped take control of the Gulf cartel following Cardenas' extradition to the United States in 2007.

The Zetas are locked in a bloody battle for supremacy with a group of rival drug gangs from Mexico's Pacific state of Sinaloa.

More than 4,000 people have been killed this year in fighting among rival criminals and security forces.

Gonzalez's arrest is unlikely to significantly weaken the Gulf cartel and the Zetas but may yield crucial intelligence about the powerful gang, suspected of being behind an unprovoked grenade attack in a crowded plaza in Mexico City in September that killed eight people. (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott and Monterrey; Writing by Mica Rosenberg)

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