Drug lord’s wife arrested in northern Mexico

The wife of drug lord Hector Beltran Leyva was arrested in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, a highlevel Federal Police commander said Tuesday.

Clara Elena Laborin Archuleta, who is suspected of being behind much of the violence in the Pacific port city of Acapulco, was captured on Monday “without any shots being fired,” Federal Police investigations division chief Omar Garcia said.

Laborin was detained in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, along with her top associate, Garcia told reporters.

The two suspects are considered “the principal sources of violence in Acapulco,” a port city in the southern state of Guerrero, but they ran their criminal organization from Hermosillo, the Federal Police commander said.

Laborin “headed the operations of a criminal organization with a presence in the state of Sonora” and coordinated the activities of “associated criminal groups that operate mainly in the port of Acapulco,” Garcia said, referring to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.

Brothers Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Hector Beltran Leyva started their criminal careers in the 1980s, working for the Guadalajara cartel, which was led by Ernesto Fonseca, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and Rafael Caro Quintero.

The Beltran Leyva cartel arose as a splinter group of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Mexico’s oldest and most powerful drug trafficking organization, in 2008.

The criminal organization was led by Arturo Beltran Leyva, who died in a shootout with marines at a luxury condo in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos state, on Dec. 16, 2009.

Two weeks after Arturo was killed, Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, where he was going by the alias of Carlos Gamez.

Hector Beltran Leyva took over control of the cartel after Arturo’s death, but he had to battle a rival faction led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal for control of the organization.

Valdez Villarreal, known as “La Barbie,” was arrested by the Federal Police on Aug. 30, 2010, and Hector Beltran Leyva was arrested just over four years later.

Hector Beltran Leyva, known as “H” and “The Engineer,” was arrested on Oct. 1, 2014, at a restaurant in the central state of Guanajuato.

The Beltran Leyva organization formed alliances with other cartels, including the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas, that were battling the Sinaloa cartel.

Since 2010, the Beltran Leyva organization has been weakened by the arrests and killings of many prominent members.