The fugitive leader of one of Mexico’s most violent and bizarre drug cartels has said that he regrets choosing a life of crime, but vowed that he would never let himself be taken alive.

“I have committed many crimes like an idiot, and I will have to pay for them when the time comes, but I don’t plan to do that on this earth,” said a man who identifies himself as Servando Gómez, alias La Tuta, in a 24-minute recording, posted on social media. “I am not going to give myself up. I am going to fight until the end.”

The Knights Templar cartel, or Caballeros Templarios, gained notoriety for its signature blend of extreme violence with faux medieval rituals and a rhetoric of social justice.

The cartel once trafficked large quantities of drugs and iron ore, while imposing a reign of terror throughout its main bastion in the Tierra Caliente, or Hot Lands, in the western state of Michoacán. The group was severely weakened after the rise of an armed vigilante movement in the region prompted federal forces to step up efforts against the Knights Templar.

With all the other major cartel leaders now dead or in prison, the recording, first posted on the internet late on Tuesday, appears to confirm reports that the circle is now closing in on La Tuta.

“Just like they say I am alone, hiding in the sierra, riding a donkey and I haven’t seen any of my women for a year,” says Gómez, who in the course of the rambling message complained that authorities had detained members of his family who had nothing to do with the drugs trade.

Interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong appeared to accept the authenticity of the recording when he told reporters that it showed “a cornered criminal who recognises that the state has been effective.”

In the recording, Gómez appears resigned to being tracked down by the authorities, but he also accuses the government of protecting other narcos – and rival groups which have risen to occupy the power vacuum left by his cartel’s demise.

He reserves particular venom for the new rural police set up in an effort to control the vigilante movement.

“For 10 years we fucked over Michoacán,” the voices announces, while expressing regrets at having led the Knights Templar. “Now they are arming more criminals than there were before.”