MEXICO CITY – Mexican authorities say a former Guatemalan soldier who allegedly procured weapons for a drug cartel was killed in a gunfight with federal police.
The Public Safety Department says Israel Nava and two other gunmen were killed Thursday in Mexico's northern state of Zacatecas. Eight police were wounded.
The department says in a statement that Nava procured weapons and explosives for the Zetas, a group of Gulf Cartel hit men.
He was allegedly behind two 2007 attacks that killed four police, two secretaries and a prosecutor in Acapulco.
The department says Nava was a former member of the "kaibiles," Guatemalan soldiers trained in counterinsurgency.
Mexico first warned in 2005 that the Zetas were recruiting "kaibiles."
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox