MEXICO HAILS ARREST AS FINAL BLOW TO MOST VIOLENT OF ITS DRUG CARTELS

The arrest of the drug cartel leader Benjamin Arellano Felix and the recent
death of his brother Ramon, its enforcer, marks the end of an era of drug
trafficking in Mexico.

Benjamin Arellano Felix, 49, was detained on Saturday at a house in
suburban Puebla, where he had been lying low for several months.

He is considered the brains behind the family drug trafficking business,
based in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, California, held
to control a quarter of the cocaine entering the US, and smaller amounts of
heroin and marijuana.

The house where he was arrested contained an altar to brother Ramon, the
chief executioner of the country's bloodiest gang, who is thought to have
died in a gun battle with police officers last month in the Pacific resort
of Mazatlan.

He was reported to have been on a mission to eliminate an arch-enemy from
another cartel, using false police identification, when he was intercepted
and shot dead by local police officers.

Confirmation of his death was complicated by the disappearance of his body
from the mortuary, and its hurried cremation, leading to speculation that
he was still at large.

The attorney general, Rafael Macedo de la Concha, told a press conference
that the cartel had been "totally dismantled".

In Washington the head of the drug enforcement administration, Asa
Hutchinson, said: "I consider this a great victory that will have
long-lasting results."

Two dozen suspected members of the cartel were arrested in the US on
Friday, officials said.

Benjamin and Ramon, who took over the leadership of the cartel in 1989,
controlled the Pacific corridor route for mainly Colombian cocaine and
raised their cartel to a level of influence equal to that of the Juarez
cartel, based in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from Texas.

Like the other cartels, the Arellano Felix cartel spent millions buying
protection, but with the bloodthirsty Ramon in charge of enforcement it
also gained the reputation of being the most inclined to shore up the
bribes with violence: a strategy known in Spanish as plata o plomo - bribes
or bullets.

A picture of Ramon, who is said to have been responsible for hundreds of
deaths remains on the the FBI's website page of 10 most-wanted fugitives,
next to Osama bin Laden.

His death has still not been officially confirmed, though Mr Macedo de la
Concha said Benjamin Arellano Felix had confirmed it when he was questioned
after his arrest.

The US government offered a $2m reward for the brothers' capture.

Experts are wary of predicting the cartel's collapse: there are several
more Arellano Felix brothers and other experienced traffickers in its ranks.

And nobody expects the arrests to stem the flow of illegal drugs from
Mexico into the US.

Mexico's other gangs are likely to try to take advantage of the situation
to muscle in on Arellano Felix territory, leading many to predict that
there will now be a bloody power struggle.