Mexican security forces nab drug capo - 41-year-old Lopez, alias 'El Bigotes,' is accused of heading a drug-smuggling corridor in La Mira controlled by La Familia

Mexican security forces nab drug capo - Fox News Latino: "leader of the La Familia Michoacana drug gang and four other suspects were apprehended in a joint operation by Federal Police officers, soldiers and marines, Mexico's Public Safety Secretariat said Friday.

Francisco Lopez Villanueva was arrested Thursday near La Mira - a town in the western state of Michoacan, where the cartel is based - the secretariat said in a statement.

It added that the suspects were surrounded during a 'land and air' operation.

The 41-year-old Lopez, alias 'El Bigotes,' is accused of heading a drug-smuggling corridor in La Mira controlled by La Familia, led by Jesus Mendez Vargas since another top leader, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, was killed on Dec. 9 in a police operation.

Lopez reputedly worked from 2006-2008 for the rival Los Zetas gang, smuggling 'large amounts of marijuana' into the United States from the northern border states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, the secretariat said.

As a La Familia 'plaza chief' for the past two years, the suspect 'is allegedly responsible for various crimes and attacks perpetrated in recent months against federal authorities,' selling marijuana in La Mira and transporting that drug to the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, 'where it was later shipped to the states of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon,' the statement added."