Mygripe MEXICAN authorities have captured one of the country’s most sought after drug kingpins, US-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “the Barbie”.
Valdez, 37, is believed to have been a key lieutenant of Arturo Beltran Leyva, who headed the cartel that bears his name and was Mexico’s third most-wanted man until his December 2009 death in a military operation.
As a head of the Beltran Leyva’s assassination squad, Valdez was thought to be involved in a power struggle to replace Arturo, competing with his brother, Hector Beltran Leyva.
The arrest, which is a major coup for the government amid spiralling drug violence, was confirmed by the attorney general’s office, the interior and public security ministries and even Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Twitter.
The Beltran Leyva gang, one of a string of violent drug gangs operating in Mexico, was dealt a severe blow with the death of chief Arturo last December and then the arrest of his younger brother, Carlos.
It broke off from the powerful Sinaloa drug trafficking organization in 2008.
Valdez – the third major drug lord brought down by Mexico’s security forces in less than a year – was charged in May in the US District Court in Atlanta with distributing thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern US from 2004 to 2006.
US authorities had offered a reward of up to $2.2 million for information leading to his capture, and the Mexican government offered a similar amount.
Valdez earned his nickname because a high school football coach in Laredo, Texas, thought his blue eyes and light hair made him look like Ken, the companion to the Barbie doll. Mygripe
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