One of Mexico's most wanted drugs traffickers has been arrested, security forces say.
Police say Ivan Velazquez Caballero, known both as El Taliban and as Z-50, is a commander of the violent criminal network, the Zetas.
However, the identity of the man in custody has yet to be confirmed.
The arrest by marines in the city of San Luis Potosi comes days after it was reported that Velazquez had split from the Zetas and joined a rival cartel.
He is believed to have controlled some of the most important drug routes into the United States and ruled them with cold brutality.
READ MORE
Miss Mexico wins Miss Universe contest after host insult drama
Mexican President Sheinbaum sues man who groped her on street
He had a reward of 30m pesos ($2.3m, £1.5m) on his head.
Police say he is the group's main leader in the states of Zacatecas, Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi.
He is said to have been at war with another top leader of the gang, Miguel Trevino, known as Z-40.
In-fighting
Police believe a recent surge in mass killings was due to rivalry between the two.
In August, a man survived a mass shooting near the city of San Luis Potosi by playing dead.
He let the attackers - from his own cartel, the Zetas - pile him into a van alongside the bodies 14 others who had been shot dead.
It then became clear that the Zetas had split into two factions.
More recently, a notice was released saying Ivan Velazquez had joined forces with the Gulf Cartel.
The Zetas were enforcers for the Gulf Cartel in the 1990s.
By 2005, they had broken away and started to run criminal enterprises themselves, and now control whole swathes of north-eastern Mexico.
On Monday, 35 police officers were arrested in operations in the states of San Luis Potosi and Veracruz, accused of having links to the Zetas.
- BBC
