Dec 10 (Reuters) - Suspected drug lord Nazario Moreno, known as "The Craziest One," has been killed by security forces in western Mexico, the Mexican government said on Friday. [ID:nN10114408]
Moreno was one of the leaders of the La Familia (The Family) drug cartel dominant in President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan.
Here are some details about the top traffickers who remain at large in Mexico.
* Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel based in northwestern Mexico, escaped from a high-security prison in a laundry van in 2001. He built up his trafficking alliance in the Sinaloan mountains and in 2005 started a turf war against rival smugglers, according to U.S and Mexican officials.
Just 5 feet (152 cm) tall, Guzman is Mexico's most-wanted fugitive. He has eluded capture, reportedly changing cell phones after every conversation and possibly having undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance.
* Ismael Zambada, Guzman's right-hand man, has never been captured in three decades as a top trafficker, police records show. Now 62, he brazenly gave an interview to Mexican news magazine Proceso in April, even posing for a photo with its founder, Julio Scherer. He is considered by U.S. anti-drug officials to be a sharp businessman and negotiator.
A former farmer from Sinaloa state, Zambada is believed to launder drug profits through a milk company, real estate holdings and a bus line, investigations by Mexican authorities show. He has a ${esc.dollar}5 million bounty on his head in the United States.
* Heriberto "The Executioner" Lazcano is head of the Zetas, the former armed wing of the Gulf cartel based in eastern Mexico, the army says. He is believed to be at large in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas.
Once a member of Mexico's elite special forces, Lazcano switched sides in the late 1990s to join the Gulf cartel, now at war with its erstwhile allies as the Zetas seek to run their own smuggling routes, the government says. Lazcano has a huge arsenal of grenades, automatic weapons and even rocket launchers, according to military reports. He is feared for his brutal tactics and is rumored to use tigers to scare victims or dispose of their bodies, Mexican media has reported.
* Vicente Carrillo Fuentes is the longtime head of the Juarez cartel, based over the border from El Paso, Texas, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was accused of flying airliners full of Colombian cocaine into Mexico in the 1990s, Carrillo took over the cartel after Amado's death during a clandestine plastic surgery operation, the DEA says.
* Servando Gomez, known as "El Profe" (The Prof) or "La Tuta," is another of La Familia's leaders and has a ${esc.dollar}2.4 million reward on his head, the Mexican government says. Gomez is suspected of running La Familia's propaganda campaign of public messages that cast the gang as Robin Hood-like rebels defending locals from the incursion of drug traffickers from other states. According to documents from the Mexican Education Ministry, he was registered as a teacher in a small town in Michoacan state in the first half of this year.
* Fernando Sanchez Arellano is fighting for control of the weakened Arellano Felix cartel in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, the DEA and the Mexican government says. A nephew of the Arellano Felix brothers who shipped tons of cocaine into California in the 1990s, he has emerged as leader after other brothers were arrested and one was killed in a shootout with police. He has the help of his accountant aunt, Enedina Arellano Felix, Mexican police in Tijuana say. (Compiled by Robin Emmott; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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