Drug kingpin Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal arrested in Mexico

Mexican authorities Wednesday announced they had arrested the new leader of the drug gang formerly run by suspected kingpin Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal.

The arrest late Tuesday of Carlos Montemayor marked a fresh blow against the remnants of the once-formidable Beltran Leyva gang, battered by arrests, deaths and vicious internal fighting.

Mexican federal police said Montemayor took over the faction once led by Valdez, a U.S. citizen arrested in August. The in-fighting has stoked months of killings and beheadings across the states of Morelos and Guerrero, home to the resort city of Acapulco, Los Angeles Times reports.

Governor Eugenio Hernandez said his state had been a major transport corridor for organised crime since prohibition, when the US outlawed alcohol in the 1920s into the early 30s. "But the situation has recently become much more complicated," he said. "It's greatly affected the dynamic of our state."

Mr Poire touted recent government blows against the two cartels, including the killing earlier this month of Gulf cartel leader Antonio "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen and the 2008 capture of a founding member of the Zetas, Jaime "the Hummer" Gonzalez Duran, who was sentenced for money laundering and weapons possession earlier this year, The Press Association reports.