MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (CNN) - Mexican authorities announced the arrest of the man they said directed the kidnappings of 72 Central and South American migrants found slain in San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
Federal Police officials said Edgar Huerta montiel, alias "El Wache," told them he led the capture of two freight trucks packed with undocumented migrants in the state of Tamaulipas, and then killed 10 of the victims.
Huerta, identified as an army deserter who works for the zetas drug gang, allegedly told police he also ordered the kidnappings of six busloads of passengers in the rural town of San Fernando.
Captives were taken to safe houses and tortured for information, including whether they were working for a rival gang known as the gulf cartel, said Ramon Eduard Pequeno, head of the anti-drug division of the federal police.
The bodies of 72 migrants turned up on August on a ranch in San Fernando after one of the group escaped.
In the same area, authorities this spring found clandestine graves with the remains of nearly 200 people believed kidnapped from buses heading toward the border.
Huerta was arrested Thursday in the northern state of Zacatecas.
Migrants are frequently seized by criminal gangs seeking to extort money from victims' loved ones.
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