Vicente Carrillo, long-time head of the once-feared Juarez drug cartel, became the second Mexican drug kingpin to fall in just over a week when he was captured in the restive northern city of Torreon.
Carrillo had been a fierce rival of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who was the world's most wanted drug boss until his capture in February, Reuters reported, and a turf war between the two cartels in 2009-2011 unleashed a bloodbath in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with Texas.
The United States had put a $5 million bounty on Carrillo's head, while Mexico had offered a $2.24 million reward.
A keen horseman who used a network of cattle ranches in the northern state of Chihuahua to store shipments of Colombian cocaine, Carrillo took over the Juarez Cartel in 1997 after his brother Amado died during plastic surgery.
Carrillo's capture comes just days after Hector Beltran Leyva, one of the most notorious Mexican drug lords still at large, was captured by soldiers in a picturesque town in central Mexico popular with American retirees.
It also comes as the government is grappling with public outrage at an apparent massacre of trainee teachers by police in league with gang members, which has triggered mass anti-government protests.
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