Mexico arrests fugitive leader of Knights Templar drug cartel

By Tracy Wilkinson | LA Times
February 27, 2015 | 7:55 A.M.

Longtime fugitive drug lord Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, founding commander of the notorious La Familia cartel, which controlled a large chunk of western Mexico and its booming methamphetamine industry, was captured by federal police early Friday, authorities said.

A teacher by training, Gomez seemed to delight in recent months by releasing videos of his meetings — in his not-so-secret hideout — with local officials whom he managed to implicate in protecting him.

His hold on the state only began to slip when vigilante “self-defense” militias, complaining that the government could not protect its citizens, rose up against the traffickers, who terrorized the population through kidnappings, extortion and intimidation.

He was captured without resistance in the Michoacan capital of Morelia, 180 miles west of Mexico City, in an operation by federal police, authorities said. Reforma newspaper reported he was detained while dining on hot dogs at around 3 a.m. in downtown Morelia.

Gomez, 49, was one of Mexico’s most wanted fugitives, and his capture will be a point in favor of the embattled government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, much-criticized of late for failing to confront the country’s destructive waves of violence and insecurity. The government had offered a bounty for Gomez equivalent to about $2 million.