MEXICAN MARINES ARREST PRESUMED CARTEL OPERATOR

MEXICO CITY -Mexican authorities said Sunday they had captured Sergio
Villareal, an alleged top drug trafficking operative in Mexico,
marking the latest high-profile capture in President Felipe Calderon's
assault against the nation's crime organizations.

Mr. Villareal, 40 years old, was arrested by special forces of the
Mexican marines on Sunday about 50 miles from Mexico City, the public
security ministry said in a press conference that evening.

Known by nicknames like "El Grande" and "King Kong," Mr. Villareal was
believed to be the second-in-command of the powerful Beltran Leyva
Cartel whose leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed in a fiery
shootout with marines in December. Since then Mr. Villareal had been
involved in a bloody war of succession which had left dozens dead in
Cuernavaca and the resort town of Acapulco, authorities say.

In a press conference Sunday, Alejandro Poire, the spokesman for the
public security office said Sergio Villareal and two companions had
been captured without resistance in an exclusive neighborhood in
Puebla, Mexico.

"This is a new and devastating blow by the federal government against
organized crime," Mr. Poire said.

The capture of Mr. Villareal, whose nickname "The Big One" was given
due to his height and weight, follows by just two weeks the capture of
Edgar Valdez Villareal, known as "La Barbie," who was once the top
enforcer for the Beltran Leyva cartel. The Beltran Leyva cartel, once
closely allied with Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking cartel,
the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, has been
decimated since its leaders broke with Mr. Guzman two years ago.

The Sunday capture is the latest in a string of recent hits by the
Mexican government against some of the biggest names in the drug
trade, raising hopes that authorities are making gains in a conflict
against drug-related violence that has claimed 28,000 lives so far.
But that progress can be hard to discern. On Friday, 85 convicts, most
of them linked to a drug cartel, made a mass escape from a prison in
the border state of Tamaulipas. Once peaceful Monterrey, Mexico's
business capital in the next door state of Nuevo Leon, has become a
battleground for warring drug cartels, leading the U.S. State
Department to oblige children of its diplomats to leave the city
following a shootout in front of a school attended by many of them.

In addition to Messrs. Beltran Leyva and Valdez Villreal, Ignacio
Coronel, known as the "King of Crystal" for his alleged involvement
the methamphetamines trade, was killed in a shootout in July with
Mexican soldiers at a mansion near Guadalajara.

If Mr. Valdez Villareal, captured in August, is cooperating with
authorities in providing information on the drug trade, their arrests
could be related. An attorney for Mr. Valdez Villareal has asked that
his client be tried in a U.S. court.

Mr. Villareal began his career as a Coahuila state policeman and then
transferred to the office of Mexico's attorney general which sent him
to the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas.

Nuevo Laredo, an important crossing point for drugs to the U.S., has
been a battleground for competing drug cartels. Mexican intelligence
documents say Mr. Villareal controlled a criminal organization in
Durango state, and used "extreme violence with high social impact
crimes which generate anxiety...in wide sectors of society."

The documents also say that since 2003, Mr. Villareal has controlled
distribution of drugs in local markets in Durango state. Mr. Villareal
bought the cocaine in the southern state of Chiapas for about $700 a
kilo, and resold it in local markets in Durango for about $1,300 a
kilo, the documents say.

Since 2007, Mr. Villareal has been investigated for the murder of at
least six people, but the investigations have gone nowhere because
they were being led by a senior prosecutor who was in Mr. Villareal's
employ, according to the intelligence documents. Apart from the
prosecutor, Mr. Villareal also maintained close relations with a
senator as well as the mayor of at least one city in Durango, the
documents say.