Zetas commander arrested in Mexico

July 31, 2016

By Jill Langlois

Federal police wait to transport alleged Zetas members who had been arrested recently.
ALFREDO ESTRELLA

Five members of Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel, including one of the group's top commanders, have been arrested.

A military release said the arrests of Zetas commander William de Jesus Torres Solorzano and four other cartel members took place in Puebla, central Mexico, according to The National. Solorzano also goes by the nicknames "El W" and "The Worm Eater."

Marines arrested Solorzano, who was accompanied by a woman, after seeing a gun in the waistband of his pants, reported EFE. Solorzano and the woman got into separate vehicles and "navy personnel proceeded to conduct a routine inspection on the chance that a crime was going to be committed," the Mexican Navy Secretariat said. A handgun, rifle, dollars, pesos, ammunition clips, a hand grenade and a bag of white powder "with the characteristics of cocaine" were found in the cartel commander's vehicle. The woman's vehicle contained what appeared to be cocaine and a grenade.

EFE also said Solorzano told marines there were other Zetas members at a nearby house. Felipe de Jesus Cortes Sanchez and German de Jesus Jimenez Lopez, who was the subject of a 1.5 million-peso ($110,000) reward offered by the Attorney General's Office, were arrested at the house with firearms, ammunition clips and hand grenades in their possession. Two others were also arrested at the house and marines seized four vehicles, $830,000, 950,000 pesos ($69,000), two rifles, three handguns, 14 ammunition clips, eight hand grenades, 203 rounds of ammunition, a 1 kg bag of white powder, a smaller bag of white powder and other items.

Most of northern and eastern Mexico is under the control of Los Zetas, which was founded by ex-anti drug commandos who regularly decapitate and dismember their enemies, according to The National. The cartel members were originally enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, but turned on their employers and took over their turf, which has key routes for smuggling drugs into the US.