Lieutenant to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Arrested in Mexico

Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is listed as the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. (AP)

A lieutenant to Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested by the Mexican army, authorities said on Sunday.

According to Mexico’s defense department, Jesus Alfredo Salazar Ramirez was arrested in Huixquilucan on Thursday. There is also an arrest order for him issued by a court in Texas for intent to distribute cocaine.

A department statement declares that Salazar is one of Guzman’s most important lieutenants and allegedly ran drug planting, production and trafficking operations for the cartel. In addition, Ramirez is also accused of ordering the November 2011 killing of 56-year-old Nepomuceno Moreno, an anti-violence activist.

Moreno, a sidewalk seafood vendor, became one of the most visible faces of Mexico’s anti-crime movement after his son, 18-year-old Jorge Mario, disappeared.

Moreno stated masked police snatched Mario, leading him to plead his case directly to President Felipe Calderon last month in a meeting with members of poet Javier Sicilia’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán Salazar, the 31-year-old daughter of “El Chapo,” was charged in October with fraud and misuse of visas, three days after authorities arrested her in San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest border crossing in the U.S. Officials stated that when Guzmán Salazar was interviewed by border inspectors, she revealed “El Chapo” was her father and that she was six months pregnant.

The Sinaloa cartel, which was named after the Pacific coast state of the same name, controls trafficking along much of the U.S. border with Mexico. The U.S. Treasury Department has put sanctions on sons Ivan Archivaldo “El Chapito” Guzmán Salazar and Ovidio Guzmán Lopez. “El Chapito,” along with his father, was indicted on multiple drug trafficking charges in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in August 2009.

An investigation on Ramirez’s arrest is ongoing.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.