Drug lord's arrest is blow for cocaine ring

Federal prosecutors in Mexico and the United States have captured of a former police officer who became one of Mexico’s top drug lords.

Federal prosecutors in Mexico and the United States have captured a former police officer who became one of Mexico’s top drug lords.

The prosecutors say his capture further dismantles a smuggling ring that turned Mexico’s Caribbean coast into a superhighway for Colombian cocaine.

Mexican police and soldiers caught up with alleged drug kingpin Alcides Ramon Magana on Tuesday night as he stopped to use a payphone in Villahermosa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

His arrest comes less than three weeks after Mexican authorities collared Mario Villanueva, the ex-governor of Quintana Roo state, for using his office to smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the United States during the late 1990s.