Mexican troops kill prominent cartel suspect

Mexico City: Mexican soldiers killed an accused drug cartel leader with a three-million-dollar US bounty on his head, the government announced Tuesday.

The suspect, Luis Enrique Barragan, 39, was a leader of a group called Cartel de Los Reyes, a faction of a larger organization called Carteles Unidos. The United States has classified this latter coalition of cartels as a foreign terrorist group.

Barragan and an associate opened fire on soldiers and National Guards in the town of Tocumbo in western Michoacan state and died in the clash, said Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch.

Barragan was a leader of an extortion ring targeting avocado farmers in Michoacan, Garcia Harfuch said in a social media post.

A US State Department web page on Barragan and the bounty for his capture says he was indicted in Washington in 2023 on drug conspiracy and firearms offenses.

The page describes Barragan as "a well known sicario and combat leader" who used proceeds from sales of cocaine, fentanyl and other drugs in the United States to buy weapons for fighting a rival cartel that moved into Michoacan, called the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

A "sicario" is a hit man.