(AFP) - Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy accused of serving as a drug cartel hitman and beheading the victims, the army said Friday.
The youth, identified as Edgar Jimenez and nicknamed "El Ponchis," had been wanted since October, and was arrested at an airport in central Morelos state as he attempted to board a plane to Tijuana, a city at Mexico's border with the United States.
"He was arrested around midnight" late Thursday, an official of military zone 24 located in the city of Cuernavaca near where the arrest occurred, told AFP.
He had earlier been arrested along with six suspected hitmen for the South Pacific Cartel.
The suspects, including Jimenez, allegedly confessed in videos posted on the Internet that they had killed several men found hanging from bridges in Cuernavaca, less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Mexico City.
They said the boy was in charge of cutting the victims' heads and genitalia, local media said.
According to the videos broadcast on Mexican media, the boy acted in complicity with his sisters, who sometimes served as decoys to lure victims.
Cuernavaca, where many wealthy families from the capital keep a secondary residence, is also the site of a fierce battle between rival drug traffickers fighting for control of the Arturo Beltran Leyva cartel after its leader of the same name was killed by military forces last December.
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