MEXICO CITY  Pozole is a popular Mexican stew that can feature pork, hominy and an array of vegetables and seasonings. But the name of the delicacy has taken on a sinister new meaning: Mexican authorities have detained a man linked to hundreds of deaths in the drug war who is being called the Pozole Maker.

The man, Santiago Meza López, known as “el Pozolero” in the Mexican news media, has confessed to dissolving the remains of 300 people in acid while working for a top drug trafficker, the Mexican Army said Friday. Dissolving bodies is gaining increasing popularity in the internecine killings between rival traffickers that is playing out here, and the practice has become known as making pozole (pronounced poh-ZOH-leh).

Mr. Meza, 45, confessed to receiving $600 a week to dispose of bodies for Teodoro García Simental, a drug kingpin who broke with the Tijuana-based Arellano Félix cartel and is said to be at war with Fernando Sánchez Arellano, his former boss, the authorities said.

Soldiers and police officers paraded Mr. Meza before reporters on Friday in a remote area on the outskirts of Tijuana, where he was accused of dumping bodies into pits over the last decade, pouring acid on them and letting them dissolve underground.