CIUDAD MADERO, Mexico – A leader of the feared enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel was arrested by federal forces in this northeastern city, officials said.

The suspect, identified as Antonio Daniel Villegas Vazquez, was reportedly the top leader of Los Zetas – a band of Mexican army veterans and deserters turned hired guns – in Ciudad Madero, located in the southern part of Tamaulipas state.

In a statement, the Navy Secretariat said the arrest occurred following a search of a home in the 20 de Noviembre neighborhood, where eight other people, including Villegas Vazquez’s wife, also were detained.

Four vehicles and weapons also were seized in the operation, in which the navy, army and federal police officers took part.

The federal forces also searched another home in the nearby city of Altamira, where they seized arms, an armored SUV, another vehicle and 38,000 pesos ($2,908) in cash.

The detainees were taken to Mexico City and turned over to the SIEDO organized crime unit of the Attorney General’s Office, which is spearheading the nation’s battle against drug trafficking.

The Gulf cartel is one of Mexico’s six largest drug-trafficking organizations and is based along Mexico’s northeastern coast. The founder of that drug mob, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was arrested in 2003 and extradited in 2007 to the United States.

Separately, Mexico’s Defense Secretariat, or Sedena, on Friday announced the arrest of two presumed cartel enforcers responsible for the deaths of nine people, including a retired U.S. soldier, in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Sedena said the arrests were carried out as part of an operation involving thousands of soldiers and police to crack down on violence in that city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The detainees were identified as 29-year-old Jose Gabriel Moreno and 19-year-old Juan Pablo Gonzalez, who confessed to being members of the Juarez cartel and killing members of rival cartels and the police.

They reportedly confessed to the slayings of six people at a night club, where the retired U.S. soldier was killed, and the murder of three police officers in Chihuahua state.

Ciudad Juarez registered more than 2,000 slayings in the first 10 months of this year, exceeding the total for all of 2008 and ensuring that the gritty metropolis will remain Mexico’s murder capital for the second year running.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence, with powerful cartels battling each other and the security forces in a scramble for smuggling and distribution routes.

The drug war is blamed for nearly 15,000 deaths in Mexico since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon gave the armed forces the leading role against the cartels.