Mexican navy claims arrest of Los Zetas drug cartel founder

An alleged founder of Los Zetas drug cartel, who is on the list of Mexico's 37 most dangerous criminals, was arrested Monday, Mexico's navy announced. Mexican marines arrested Raul Lucio Hernandez Lechuga, nicknamed "Lucky," in a ground operation in Cordoba in the eastern state of Veracruz, the navy said in a statement. The arrest was "a result of intensive intelligence work," it said. Police also captured several other people in the operation, which is still in process, according to the statement. President Felipe Calderon confirmed via his Twitter account the arrest of Hernandez Lechuga. "The Navy caught 'Lucky,' founder of the Zetas and regional leader in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla. One of the 37 most wanted," he said. The criminals on the list have a bounty on their head of 30 million pesos (2.17 million U.S. dollars) in Mexico, and 5 million U.S. dollars in the United States. With Lechuga's arrest, police have now caught 22 of the 37 since 2009. The top two Los Zetas leaders, Heriberto "Lazca" Lazcano, and Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, known as "40," remain at large. Los Zetas, which operates in several Mexican states, is the second most powerful drug cartel in Mexico and considered by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as the most violent drug-trafficking organization and paramilitary enforcement group in Mexico. Founded as an armed wing of the Gulf cartel in the 1990s, Los Zetas split from that organization in March 2010 and has since been responsible for some of the most gruesome scenes of violence in the country, as part of its fight to gain territory from other cartels. The group was accused of an arson attack that killed 52 people at Monterrey's Casino Royale on Aug. 25 this year, as well as the massacre of 72 undocumented immigrants, mostly from Central America, in Tamaulipas in August 2010.