Alleged drug lord is arrested in Mexico, two Mexican federal agents nabbed in U.S.

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Alleged drug kingpin Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian believed to be the main cocaine supplier to an offshoot of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Mexico City, federal police said Friday.

One of the hemisphere’s most wanted fugitives, Villafane Martinez has been on the lam since 2001, when he escaped from a maximum-security lockup in Colombia while awaiting extradition to the United States on narcotics charges, writes Marla Dickerson.

His arrest was a rare piece of good news for President Felipe Calderon in his U.S.-backed war against Mexico’s violent drug cartels. Authorities nabbed Villafane Martinez on Wednesday at a home in the Mexican capital’s upscale Jardines del Pedregal neighborhood, where he apparently had lived for some time alongside millionaires and captains of industry.

Meanwhile, north of the border two Mexican federal agents were charged Friday with possession of alleged drug money after they were arrested at a West Covina home with more than $500,000, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, reports Richard Marosi.

Carlos Cedano Filippini, 35, the lead agent from the Mexicali office of the Agencia Federal de Investigacion, and Victor Manuel Juarez, 36, were arrested Wednesday as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Read the rest of this story about the arrest of Ever Villafane Martinez here.

To read on about the arrest of the two Mexican federal agents in Los Angeles, click here.

For more posts about the Mexican drug trade, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City