"La Familia" drug cartel leader "The Monkey" arrested in Mexico

(CBS/AP) MEXICO CITY - Police in Mexico have apprehended the suspected leader of the cult-like La Familia drug cartel on Tuesday, saying they have dealt a debilitating blow to a major organized crime group that terrorized western Mexico.

Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, alias El Chango, or "The Monkey," was arrested in the central state of Aguascalientes without confrontation or casualties, said federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

A state official who was not authorized to speak on the record said Mendez was taken at a federal police checkpoint, but authorities didn't provide more details.

"With this arrest, what remained of the command structure of this criminal organization has been destroyed," Poire told a news conference.

With the death of La Familia founder and leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez in December, Poire said Mendez was "the last remaining head of a criminal group responsible for homicides, kidnappings, extortion, corruption and even cowardly attacks on the authorities and civilian population."

But the leader of a violent splinter group, known as the Knights Templar, remains at large.

President Felipe Calderon personally lauded the arrest on his Twitter account, calling it a "big blow" to organized crime. The cartel was born in Calderon's home state of Michoacan in 2006, prompting him to deploy thousands of federal police there and warning that La Familia was corrupting local officials, extorting businesses and terrorizing the population.

According to the reward statement issued by the Attorney General's Office, college-educated Mendez was "responsible for the transfer and sale of cocaine, marijuana, crystal methamphetamine in various states of Mexico and the United States of America. He is the alleged mastermind of kidnappings and killings, mainly of members of other criminal organizations." The government had offered a $2.5 million reward for his capture.