MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s federal police on Thursday announced they had arrested a drug gang member who detonated a car bomb that killed three people in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
Federal police regional security chief Luis Cardenas Palomino said Fernando Contreras used a cell phone to detonate the June 15 car bomb that killed a federal police officer and two civilians.
Cardenas Palomino said that after the attack, Contreras was sent to Chihuahua city as the leader there for La Linea drug gang allied with the Juarez drug cartel.
Contreras was arrested Wednesday in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs, he said.
Ciudad Juarez has become one of the world’s deadliest cities amid a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels. More than 2,000 people have been killed this year in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Meanwhile, officials were continuing to burn the 148 tons (134 metric tons) of marijuana seized in the border city of Tijuana. The 15,000 packages were set ablaze on Wednesday.