The eight men and two women arrested Wednesday were allegedly working for the Sinaloa-based Beltran Leyva cartel and had been hired to attack the rival La Familia cartel, which has allegedly moved into the capital from the nearby state of Michoacan."It is clear that these two gangs, the two cartels, are already on the outskirts of Mexico City," said acting federal police Commissioner Rodrigo Esparza, adding "there is a war between these two criminal gangs for the territory."The 10 suspects were arrested in the township of Tultitlan, on the northern outskirts of one of the world's largest cities. They worked for Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "Barbie," the reputed chief hit man for the Beltran Leyva cartel, Esparza said. Earlier, police had arrested 13 heavily armed members of the La Familia cartel in the same area.The two gangs are apparently fighting for control of trafficking routes as well as local drug sales, he said.While cartel hitmen have carried out selective assassinations in Mexico City and some cartel operators have been arrested here, the city has been largely spared the raging gunbattles that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people in Mexico last year.The bodies of 24 men were found bound with duct tape and shot in the head last year in a rural area outside Mexico City. Authorities believe the killings stemmed from a territorial dispute between cartels. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina has said at least 17 of the victims were identified as bricklayers who had been recruited into drug dealing.
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