Morelia: A brother of one of Mexico’s most wanted drug lords apparently killed himself with a gun on Friday when police surrounded him in the troubled state of Michoacan, a senior official said.

His death came as authorities found the bullet-riddled bodies of six men in another part of Michoacan, a state that has proven to be one of the biggest security challenges of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration.

Aquiles Gomez, brother of Knights Templar cartel chief Servando “La Tuta” Gomez, was in an apartment in the port of Lazaro Cardenas when authorities found him, said Alfredo Castillo, the special security envoy to Michoacan.

“The central theory is that when he saw himself surrounded by federal forces, this person committed suicide,” Castillo told Radio Formula, adding that Gomez had a gun wound “under the mouth.”

Gun fire residue was found in his hand, Castillo said, but investigators will also test the officers who participated in the operation.

Magdalena Guzman, spokeswoman for the Michoacan prosecutor’s office, said that a 9-millimeter pistol was found next to him.

Rural defence forces made up of former vigilantes have been hunting for Servando Gomez in the mountains of Michoacan in recent weeks.

Pena Nieto deployed extra troops to the state earlier this year to restore order as vigilantes seized security of cartel-dominated towns. His administration then deputised the vigilantes in May.

Elsewhere in Michoacan, authorities found the bound and blindfolded bodies of six men dumped in a traffic circle near a university building in the city of Uruapan, Guzman said.

A wounded survivor was found at the scene.

A note that was left near the bodies bore the name of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — bitter rivals of the Knights Templar gang — from the neighbouring state of Jalisco.

The note says “we are here,” in an apparent declaration that the cartel has made an incursion in the state once dominated by the Knights Templar.