Mexico nabs suspect in mass graves case

MEXICO CITY – Mexican troops arrested Saturday a suspected leader of the Zetas drug cartel believed to be the planner behind a group of mass graves found in northeastern Mexico, the navy said.

“We have taken into custody Martin Omar Estrada Luna, alias ‘El Kilo,’ a suspected leader of the Zetas in San Fernando,” the village in Tamaulipas state where the graves were found with the remains of at least 145 people this month, a navy statement said.

The suspect detained is “apparently linked to the recent discovery of mass graves with bodies in them” in San Fernando, the statement said.

Earlier, Navy chief Mariano Saynez said in a Twitter posting that Estrada Luna is suspected in last year’s deaths of 72 US-bound migrants found dead in the same town.

Estrada Luna was one of six people arrested in the same operation Saturday, the navy statement added.

A series of bus hijackings alerted authorities who since April 1 have found about 20 mass graves in San Fernando.

The Zetas are a notorious gang formed in the 1990s by ex-military commandos now engaged in a fight to the death with their former bosses, the Gulf cartel.

Seven major drug gangs are operating in Mexico, and over 34,600 people have been killed since December 2006 in violence related to raging wars for control of smuggling routes and government efforts to stamp them out.