The famously bloodthirsty boss of Mexico's most notoriously violent drug cartel has been captured by Mexican marines without a shot being fired, authorities have said.

Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, the leader of the Zetas cartel, was arrested 17 miles outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo in the north-east corner of Mexico, long a stronghold of the organisation.

A navy helicopter pursued the pickup truck in which Treviño was traveling along unpaved back roads towards the city at 3.45am on Monday and forced it to stop, government security spokesman Eduardo Sánchez told reporters. He said ground reinforcements then arrested the drug baron along with two other occupants of the vehicle who were initially thought to be his accountant and a bodyguard.

"No shots were fired," Sanchez said, adding that marines found eight assault weapons and 500 rounds of ammunition inside the pickup, as well as two million dollars.

"He is wanted on charges of drug trafficking, murder, torture, unauthorised possession of firearms among other crimes," the spokesman said, highlighting his alleged responsibility in the kidnapping and murder of 265 migrants in Zeta territory.

Sanchéz, who insisted the operation was the result of months of intelligence work, said all three detainees had been flown to Mexico City and were being held for initial questioning in the organised crime unit of the attorney general's Office.

The arrest of the kingpin known as Z-40 is the first high profile takedown of a drug baron since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in December with Mexico in the midst of a complex tapestry of cartel turf wars.

The violence is estimated to have killed well over 80,000 people since Peña Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderón, launched a military led crackdown on organised crime in 2006 that triggered more violence. The bloodletting has continued into the new administration at about the same rate, with the government insisting that it needs more time to make good on its promises to slash the death toll.

The Zetas have played a crucial role in much of the violence, with Treviño long a leading figure within the group. He took over full control after his long-time close collaborator Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, alias El Lazca, was killed in a shootout with the authorities in 2012.

The latest major blow against the group will not necessarily lead to a drop in the violence. Treviño's most likely successor is reported to be his younger brother Omar, though he is not anything like as well known and is believed to be far weaker. This could increase the chances of bloody internal power struggles or a full blown split.

The Zetas are renowned as one of the most brutal of all Mexico's trafficking groups, all of which regularly indulge in extreme violence such as beheadings and massacres. The group is particularly well known for augmenting its drug trafficking profits with other criminal activities such as extortion and kidnapping, including mass abductions and murders of central American migrants passing through Mexico on their way to the United States.

The group was originally formed in the late 1990s within the Gulf cartel from a core of deserters from a special forces unit in the army. The Zetas and the Gulf eventually split in 2010, triggering a prolonged period of near conventional-style warfare between the two groups in north-eastern Mexico.

The Zetas have also maintained a long-running rivalry with other cartels, particularly the Sinaloa cartel headed by Mexico's most famous trafficker, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Guzmán may be strengthened by Treviño's arrest.

Treviño, now said to be in his 40s, reportedly began his life of crime as a teenager in a Nuevo Laredo gang and was one of the few major leaders of the Zetas without a military background.

He reputedly sealed his status within the cartel by successfully leading the group's defence of its Nuevo Laredo bastion against an attempted invasion by the Sinaloa cartel in 2005. The brutality and openness of the battles back then were the first real taste of the drug wars to come.