Mexico busts top drug gang boss wanted in U.S.
Source: Reuters
(Recasts, adds embassy comment) MEXICO CITY, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A key member of Mexico's powerful Gulf Cartel drug gang, wanted by Washington for attempted murder of federal agents, was arrested at a swanky steakhouse in the capital, Mexican and U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Mexican soldiers apprehended Juan Carlos de la Cruz, known as "The JC," with three Colombians and three alleged hitmen in Mexico City on Tuesday at an Argentine steak restaurant popular with rich Mexicans and visiting foreign businessmen, Mexico's attorney general's office said. The office said de la Cruz, who worked as a state policeman, had recently been promoted within the cartel and was the main link with Central and South American drug smuggling gangs. Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador in Mexico, said de la Cruz is wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI on charges of attempted kidnapping and attempted murder of federal agents in the United States. "As a leader of the Gulf Cartel, de la Cruz was involved in a 1999 assault on U.S. law enforcement officials, who narrowly escaped with their lives," Garza said in a statement. The DEA said that in 1999 about a dozen men from the gang, including cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, surrounded, assaulted and attempted to kidnap a DEA agent, an FBI agent and an informer in daylight at a major traffic intersection in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. The incident led Washington to offer a $2 million reward for Cardenas, who was arrested in 2003. He was extradited to the United States in January. About 1,600 people have been killed this year in a turf war between the Gulf Cartel, which dominates drug smuggling routes on Mexico's Atlantic coast, and the powerful Sinaloa gang on the Pacific coast. Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military-backed assault on the gangs, which channel South American cocaine into the United States, shortly after taking office last year. Last week, police arrested a senior member of the Sinaloa gang and 10 other drug smugglers in the northern city of Hermosillo. (Reporting by Noel Randewich, Anahi Rama and Frank Jack Daniel)
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