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The suspected leader of the Los Zetas drug cartel in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has been arrested, while a leader of the Cartel Independiente de Acapulco was captured in the southern state of Guerrero, officials said.

Federal Police officers captured Marcos Carmona Hernández, suspected of being the top Los Zetas boss in Oaxaca, on Monday.

The 29-year-old Carmona Hernández reported directly to top Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, the Public Safety Secretariat said.

Lazcano Lazcano, known as "El Lazca," deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, all members of an elite special operations unit, becoming the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel.

After several years on the payroll of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas broke with their bosses in late 2009 went into the drug business on their own account.

The Los Zetas cartel, considered Mexico's most violent criminal group, now controls several lucrative territories and smuggling routes into the United States.

Carmona Hernández joined Los Zetas in 2006 in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas as leader of a group of lookouts and informants, and he was made the boss of a territory in 2009, the secretariat said.

He confessed that he ordered and took part in the kidnappings of several people, as well as the murders of others in Oaxaca, strangling, beheading or finishing off victims, the secretariat said.

Carmona Hernández told investigators that the gang was assisted by municipal, state and other law enforcement agents, "who warned them about operations and actions targeting them," the secretariat said.

Los Zetas has agreements with three other cartels to refrain from attacking them, Carmona Hernández told investigators.

The agreements reached by Los Zetas are with the Beltran Leyva cartel, the Juárez cartel, led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, and the Tijuana cartel, which is headed by Fernando Sánchez Arellano.

The Federal Police, meanwhile, arrested Benjamin Flores Reyes, one of the leaders of the Cartel Independiente de Acapulco, a drug trafficking organization that was created recently and has carried out several killings, the secretariat said.

Flores Reyes, who lived in the United States for more than 15 years and studied criminal psychology, was arrested on Sunday along with six accomplices in the resort city of Acapulco.

The 33-yearold Flores Reyes allegedly controlled "the distribution of drugs, as well as the groups that acted as lookouts" for the Cartel Independiente de Acapulco, the secretariat said.

Flores Reyes faces drug, extortion, kidnapping, murder and bribery charges, officials said.

He reported directly to Moises Montero Alvarez, known as "El Koreano" and considered another of the cartel's top leaders, the secretariat said.

The Cartel Independiente de Acapulco arose after the break-up of the gang led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as "La Barbie."

Valdez Villarreal's gang, in turn, had broken away from the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, which is a splinter group of the Sinaloa organization.

Valdez Villarreal, who got his nickname because of his fair skin and blue eyes, was arrested by the Federal Police on Aug. 30.

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