POLICE ARREST CHIEF OF LA FAMILIA CARTEL

MEXICO CITY-Federal police captured the chief of Mexico's La Familia
drug cartel Tuesday, dealing another blow to a gang that lost its
founding leader just months ago and is now torn by a bloody internal
feud in its home state of Michoacan.

Police captured Jose de Jesus Mendez, known by his alias "El Chango,"
or the Monkey, in the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes without
firing any shots, Alejandro Poire, Mexico's national security
spokesman, said in a statement.

President Felipe Calderon, in a statement on his Twitter account,
congratulated the Federal Police and called the capture "a great blow"
against organized crime. The government had offered $2.5 million
reward for information leading to the drug lord's arrest.

Mr. Mendez took over leadership of the La Familia gang, a cult-like
group that used a mixture of violence and good works to generate local
support, after federal forces killed the cartel's messianic founder,
Nazario Moreno, in December.

Mr. Moreno, nicknamed "El Mas Loco," or the craziest one," was viewed
as the cartel's spiritual leader while Mr. Mendez was its key
operator, said George Grayson, a professor at The College of William
and Mary in Virginia and expert on Mexico's cartels.

La Familia, which largely pioneered the production of methamphetamines
among Mexican drug cartels, has suffered a string of setbacks in the
past year, losing a handful of key operators.

"With this arrest, we have destroyed what remained of the leadership
structure of that criminal organization," Mr. Poire said.

Mr. Mendez's killing is the latest success in Mr. Calderon's strategy
of going after cartel leaders. In 1999, Mexico identified its 37 most
wanted criminals, 21 of whom have now been killed or captured,
according to Mr. Poire.

Paradoxically, taking out drug lords has led to even more violence, as
battles break out for succession and cartels suffer splits. Since Mr.
Calderon took power in December 2006, more than 40,000 people have
died in drug-related violence, according to government statistics.

La Familia seems to be no exception. After Mr. Moreno's death, the
cartel seems to have undergone a split between two factions, according
to Mexican analysts. One was led by Mr. Mendez, and the other was led
by Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, a former schoolteacher who called his
offshoot "The Knights Templar," a reference to the 12th Century
Christian crusaders.

In recent days, the group has hung up huge banners in Michoacan
accusing Mr. Mendez of an alliance with La Familia's erstwhile friends
turned enemies, Los Zetas, another Mexican cartel.

Mr. Mendez, 37, first worked as a top hit man for Osiel Cardenas
Guillen, a leader of the Gulf Cartel who was captured in 2003 and
extradited to the U.S. in 2007, according to a copy of a Mexican
intelligence file on the drug lord obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

La Familia began as an offshoot of the Gulf Cartel in Michoacan, but
soon went its own way. In 2008, authorities blamed the group for a
grenade attack that killed eight people in a square in Morelia on
Mexican Independence Day.

- -Laurence Iliff and Jose de Cordoba contributed to this article.