Mexican federal authorities arrested a key Gulf Cartel lieutenant at a shopping center near Mexico City. The lieutenant is the nephew of a top cartel leader who is credited with founding Los Zetas as his personal bodyguards.

Over the weekend, Mexican federal authorities arrested Mario “El Betito” Cardenas Medina at a shopping center in the municipality of Naucalpan in Mexico state, just a short distance from Mexico City. At the time of the arrest, Cardenas did not put up any resistance. During the arrest, authorities also arrested a woman identified only as Miriam who was carrying a handgun, four cell phones, and some drug packets.

Cardenas is the nephew of famed Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence at a U.S. federal prison on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. The man known as El Betito is the son of Mario “El Gordo” or “M-1” Cardenas Guillen, who inherited control of the Gulf Cartel after Osiel’s arrest and the death of another brother. Since then, Gulf Cartel has splintered into several factions. As Breitbart News has been reporting, one faction led by the Cardenas family and based out of the border city of Matamoros has been fighting a fierce turf war against a rival faction for control of the border city of Reynosa.

In 2009, the Mexican military had arrested El Betito during an operation in Matamoros. At the time of his arrest, authorities seized eight rifles, close to 20 grenades and three vehicles. During that arrest, Cardenas told authorities that he had been working for his uncle, the late Antonio Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas Guillen who at the time-controlled Matamoros for the Gulf Cartel. El Betito had overseen running cocaine from Michoacán to Matamoros for the cartel. It remains unclear when he was released from prison.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart News traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas.

