Culiacan, Mexico, Apr 22 (EFE).- A nephew of late Juarez cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes was arrested during an anti-kidnapping operation in northwestern Mexico that left the victim and two suspected kidnappers dead, Sinaloa state Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera said.
Jaime Eduardo Quevedo Gastelum was detained in the San Carlos section of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, on Monday, the AG said.
Quevedo Gastelum was arrested in connection with the kidnapping of businessman Ernesto Alonso Valdez Solano, who was abducted when he arrived home in the early morning hours of April 11.
The kidnappers contacted one of the victim's relatives on the same day and demanded ransom of 70 million pesos ($4.5 million).
A special police anti-kidnapping unit began investigating and located the kidnappers' safe house in Culiacan, Higuera said.
Police arriving at the house on Monday afternoon were met by gunfire and called the marine corps and army for assistance after engaging the occupants in a 90-minute shootout.
The security forces finally gained control of the situation after two hours, the AG said.
Quevedo Gastelum and three other suspects were arrested in the operation, in which the victim and two kidnappers died, Higuera said.
Quevedo Gastelum's gang was behind other kidnappings, including the December 2014 abduction of a young man in Guasave, a city in Sinaloa, the AG's office said.
The young man's father paid a ransom of 2.5 million pesos (about 162,000), but both he and his son were murdered, prosecutors said.
Quevedo Gastelum, the son of late drug trafficker Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, told investigators that he did not use his real surname because he and his parents agreed that it would give him certain advantages, such as being able to enter the United States more easily.
The Juarez cartel was founded in 1993 by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was known as the "Lord of the Skies" for his fleet of aircraft.
Amado's brother, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, and his son, Vicente Carrillo Leyva, who was arrested in April 2009, took control of the cartel following the drug lord's 1997 death after undergoing plastic surgery to disguise his identity.
The Juarez cartel, one of Mexico's most violent criminal organizations, has been waging a war against the Sinaloa cartel that has left thousands of people dead in the past few years.
The cartel smuggles drugs and engages in other criminal activities from its base in Ciudad Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
Over the weekend, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido announced that Jesus Salas Aguayo, suspected of being the Juarez cartel's top leader, had been captured.
Salas, one of the most-wanted men in Mexico, was arrested last Friday by army troops, Attorney General's Office agents and Federal Police officers, the national security commissioner said Sunday.