CUERNAVACA – Mexican security forces have shot dead drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, one of the country’s most wanted traffickers, in the biggest strike yet for President Felipe Calderon’s drug war.
Beltran Leyva, a cartel chief dubbed “the Boss of Bosses”, was shot on Wednesday night by navy forces at a luxury apartment complex in the city of Cuernavaca, a fashionable weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.
The strike, which also killed six of his bodyguards, is a major coup for the government at the end of a year when drug violence has exploded to unprecedented levels.
Mr Calderon, in Copenhagen for the climate change talks, called the operation a big win for Mexico and praised the investigative work behind it.
The Beltran Leyva cartel is one of half a dozen whose turf wars have led to the deaths of more than 16,000 people since Calderon came to power in late 2006 and set the army on drug traffickers.
Drug gang killings have soared this year to an unprecedented 7,000; atrocities including torture and decapitations are common, alarming the US government and threatening Mexico’s image as a stable destination for foreign investors and tourists.
Video footage of the raid showed Leyva’s bloodstained body lying in the hallway of the bullet-riddled apartment surrounded by glass shards from shot-out windows.
Elite navy forces in ski-masks shot him dead as they burst into the residence, whose rooms were cluttered with assault rifles, newly purchased clothing and items like a family photo album, a Bible, a child’s television in pink plastic, a pair of crocodile-skin boots and plates of fruit, ham and eggs.
Residents of the upmarket white apartment towers, including a high-school graduation party full of teenagers, were evacuated to a gymnasium as security forces arrived by helicopter and truck and laid spikes on the road to prevent anyone escaping by car.
Leyva ran a cartel based in northwestern Mexico and is the most important drug gang leader to have been killed since the Tijuana cartel’s Ramon Arellano Felix in 2002.
Leyva was a rival of Mexico’s number one most wanted man, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, who could benefit from his enemys death. – (Reuters)
