MEXICO CITY — A reputed gang leader wanted in the United States on gun and drug charges was taken into custody by Jamaican authorities on Tuesday as the furious search for him, which set off violent clashes in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, entered its second month.

Owen Ellington, commissioner of the police, the Jamaican Constabulary Force, later told reporters that the reputed gang leader, Christopher Coke, had been peacefully taken into custody while in a vehicle with the Rev. Al Miller, an evangelical preacher who helped arrange the recent surrender of Mr. Coke’s brother and sister.

Mr. Miller told reporters that Mr. Coke had contacted him Tuesday and asked for help in turning himself in at the American Embassy in Kingston. The two men were en route to the embassy when the police stopped the car and arrested Mr. Coke, he said. Mr. Coke is willing to forgo an extradition hearing and face trial in the United States, said Mr. Miller, of the nondenominational Whole Life Ministry.

Although Reverend Miller was released at the scene, Mr. Ellington later called on him to turn himself in to the authorities for questioning.