Sinaloa drug cartel leader arrested
A municipal police officer chased members of a gang in Acapulco, Mexico, on January 8, 2011, after twenty-five bodies were found in the city. Ten more dead were found there on June 9, and over 40,000 people in Mexico have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006, a surge that many are attributing to lose US gun laws.
Police in Mexico told BBC News that they arrested the leader of a gang associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel. Police presented suspect Jose Antonio Torres before reporters at a news conference and said that he may have masterminded a brutal attack at a rehab center three years ago.
In 2009, hooded gunmen raided a treatment clinic in Ciudad Juarez. They forced patients to line up against the wall and then shot them, reported the Associated Press. Eighteen people died.
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Police said at the time that treatment centers in Mexico had become havens for drug dealers looking to hide from rival gangs and police. Police believe that Torres, suspected leader of the Gente Nueva gang in the Sinaloa drug cartel, ordered the attack to eliminate rival gang members from the Juarez cartel.
CNN reported in January that over 48,000 people in Mexico have been killed from suspected drug-related violence in the past five years.