| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexican Soldiers Capture Suspected Drug Chief
 Robin Emmott - Reuters
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September 27, 2010
Mexico City - Mexican soldiers have arrested a suspected leader of the violent Zetas drug gang in the Caribbean resort city of Cancun and blamed him for a deadly attack on a bar last month, the army said on Sunday.
Soldiers captured Jose Angel Fernandez late last week and said he was in charge of trafficking and enforcement operations in Cancun and the surrounding state of Quintana Roo state.
The army said in a statement that Fernandez ordered the attack on a bar on August 31 in Cancun that killed eight people because the bar declined to pay protection money.
The army blamed Fernandez for the sharp rise in extortions in the city, saying the Zetas were using that income to fight their war with rivals the Gulf cartel.
The army declined to say how Fernandez was captured but said he was caught with three other people, weapons, cash in dollars and pesos, cell phones, vehicles and a list of names of people on the Zeta payroll in Quintana Roo.
Cancun is one of Mexico's top tourist resorts, famed for its white sand beaches and nearby Mayan ruins, but it is also a stronghold for drug gangs bringing narcotics in from Central America and the Caribbean.
The battle between rival cartels and state security forces has killed more than 29,000 people across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched his offensive on the cartels in late 2006.
Many of the dead are corrupt police, drug dealers and hitmen. U.S. and European tourists have not been targeted but fears of drug violence spreading to hotel strips across Mexico are driving away some tourists and threatening Mexico's crucial tourism industry, hotel owners say.
Named after a Mexican police code for high-ranking officers, the Zetas are led by former Mexican special forces who switched sides to work for the Gulf cartel in the late 1990s but who have since split from their former employers, unleashing horrific violence.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
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