Mexico captures an alleged leader of Aztecas gang

Published November 17, 2014

Mexico's federal police have captured a presumed leader of a cross-border drug gang suspected in dozens of killings, including the slaying of a U.S. consulate worker, authorities announced Sunday.

Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, 32, was arrested Saturday in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, which is considered the most violent city in Mexico.

Gallegos is suspected in last January's killing of 15 youths at a party, a massacre that shocked even the violence-hardened people of Ciudad Juarez, and in the March murder of a U.S. consulate employee in that city, regional security chief Luis Cardenas Palomino said.

The alleged gang leader is also accused of killing five federal agents in unrelated attacks.

Gallegos is purported to be one of the leaders of the Aztecas gang that operates both in Ciudad Juarez and across the border in El Paso, Texas.

The Aztecs work as hired assassins for the Juarez cartel, which is fighting its rival, the Sinaloa cartel, for control of Ciudad Juarez and lucrative border routes for smuggling drugs into the United States, Mexican authorities say.

Two other members of the gang were arrested with Gallegos on charges of transporting drugs and weapons.

Authorities said they seized 228 cartridges, 90 grams of marijuana and four vehicles, one of them armored.

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