MEXICO CITY, July 31 (Reuters) - Mexican police have captured a key Colombian drug trafficker who was a top supplier of cocaine to the fractured Sinaloa cartel, police said on Thursday.

Ever Villafane Martinez was detained on Wednesday for illegally carrying a gun in the capital city, police said.

Villafane supplied drugs to a gang led by Arturo Beltran Leyva, a one-time ally of Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman, considered Mexico's most wanted man, police said.

The Beltran Leyva and Guzman gangs are waging a turf war for control of the Sinaloa cartel. Beltran Leyva's hitmen reportedly killed one of Guzman's sons in May.

Villafane was sought by Colombian authorities after escaping from a maximum security prison in 2001, police said.

(Reporting by Chris Aspin, editing by Alan Elsner)

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