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MEXICO CITY (CBS/AP) – former police officer Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez aka ‘El Diego admits ordering 1,500 killings as La Linea drug gang chieftain along the U.S. border has been captured in northern Mexico, federal officials said Sunday.
Acosta built a criminal empire, not only leading a gang of contract killers for the Juarez Cartel but also extorting businesses and kidnapping for large ransoms, said Tony Payan, an expert on the drug war at the University of Texas-El Paso.
“This is an enforcer and the financial arm of the Juarez Cartel,” said Payan, whose research comes from both newspaper accounts and people living in Ciudad Juarez.
Payan said Acosta’s law enforcement past explains how the cartel could gather intelligence using informants within local police forces
The cartel, allegedly led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, has been losing ground to the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization, headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in a three-year battle over the border city’s smuggling corridors. But Carrillo Fuentes and alleged top lieutenant Juan Pablo Ledezma remain at large.
