Mexican Marines have captured the chief of the ultra violent Zetas drug cartel near the border with Texas, and all indications are that he is a particularly brutal character.
Officials have said that Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, aka "Z-40," liked to "stew" his enemies by plunging them in containers of oil and fuel before lighting them on fire, AFP reports.
The 40-year-old ex-police officer and two others were detained in Anahuac, a city bordering Texas.
The Zetas, founded by former elite soldiers, are one of the most powerful and feared organized crime groups in Mexico. The cartel originally served as the enforcers of the Gulf Cartel, but split off in 2010.
A brutal turf war between the Zetas, Gulf, and Sinaloa cartels has been ongoing in the north of the country ever since.
The arrest of Z-40 is the first victory for new president Pena Nieto, who took over in December. Under his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, cartels conquered Mexico and began making significant inroads in large U.S. cities.
A different opportunistic cartel member will undoubtedly take Z-40's place. As Pablo Escobar's former security chief, Jhon "Popeye" Velásquez, told Der Spiegel: "You will never win this [drug] war when there is so much money to me made. Never."
In June of last year, police raided a horse ranch in Oklahoma that was under suspicion of hosting a money-laundering operation for Morales.
Z-40 took control of the Zetas after Mexican troops killed his predecessor, Heriberto Lazcano. Authorities lost Lazcano's corpse when gunmen stole his body for a funeral home.
SEE ALSO: Pablo Escobar's Right-Hand Man Explains Why The Drug War Is Unwinnable
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