MEXICO CITY – A suspected Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartel boss in Ciudad Guzman, a city in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, has been captured by marines, the Mexican Navy Secretariat said Thursday.

Jose Javier Ramirez Chavez, who was arrested on Wednesday, is a close associate of the cartel’s top boss, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the secretariat said.

Ramirez Chavez is suspected of being “the boss for drug sales for the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel in Ciudad Guzman,” the secretariat said in a statement.

Marines seized two rifles, one of which had a grenade launcher, and a kilo of what appears to be the synthetic drug “crystal” from the suspect.

Four cartel members arrested last Sunday took their orders from Ramirez Chavez, the secretariat said.

The cartel boss was turned over to the Siedo organized crime unit of the federal Attorney General’s Office.

At least six suspected Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartel members died in a shootout with police in Tonaya, a city in Jalisco, last weekend.

Cartel enforcers blocked 28 roads in Jalisco after the shootout, the Federal Police said.

Gunmen used vehicles to block streets across the Guadalajara metropolitan area and in nearby cities, setting 35 vehicles on fire, Jalisco Government Secretary Victor Manuel Gonzalez said.

The Jalisco Nueva Generacion organization was created following the death of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, a top Sinaloa drug cartel boss killed by the army in 2010.

Jalisco Nueva Generacion has been fighting Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent drug cartel, for control of smuggling routes into the United States. EFE