Mexico Captures Cartel Leader 'El Marro'

Fiscalía General del Estado de Guanajuato

Mexican federal officials and state security forces in Guanajuato captured one of Mexico’s most-wanted criminals.

Notorious cartel leader José Antonio Yépez Ortíz, known as "El Marro,” was captured early Sunday morning in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, an area hard hit by gang violence in Mexico, according to information released by federal and state officials.

Yépez leads the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, which was known for fuel theft in Guanajuato, but has also increasingly been engaged in a violent turf war with another powerful criminal organization, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. The bloody battle has made the state increasingly unsafe.

Yépez was captured Sunday with five others during a successful operation to rescue a kidnapped business woman, the Guanajuato Attorney's Office said in a release.

Mexico’s Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said in tweet that Yépez was arrested for suspected organized crime and fuel theft, and would be taken to the maximum-security Altiplano penitentiary, the same prison where drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was held before escaping through a in 2015.

The capture of Yépez could be a boost for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose government has struggled to address violence as Mexico's homicide rate has soared.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Landau congratulated Mexico on the arrest, Sunday.

"Excellent news to start this Sunday: the capture of the criminal El Marro in Guanajato," he tweeted in Spanish. "Criminals think they are so quick and so smart, but in the end the good guys will always win."