Morelia, Mexico: The bullet-riddled body of the founder of Mexico's once-mighty La Familia Michoacana drug cartel was found Monday alongside three other men on a road in the country's violent west.
The body of Carlos Rosales Mendoza, alias "El Tisico" ("The Turbecular"), was identified and claimed by his children, an official in the Michoacan state prosecutor's office told AFP.
The four bodies were found with bullet wounds near a toll booth on a road in Michoacan that leads to the Pacific coast, authorities said.
Rosales was arrested in 2004 and spent a decade in prison until his release last year.
He was originally a member of the Milenio gang, but later collaborated with the Zetas drug cartel to fight against his former criminal group in a key region for the production and shipment of narcotics.
The Milenio gang essentially disappeared with its leader's arrest in 2003. Two years later, Rosales founded La Familia.
La Familia made its presence known in Michoacan by tossing five severed heads on a dance floor and vowing to mete out "divine justice."
But La Familia was weakened by internal power struggles, leading to a new faction, the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel, whose reign of terror prompted farmers in Michoacan to form vigilante militias in 2013.
The Knights Templar have also been diminished with the captures or killings of its top leaders.
AFP
