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FILE PHOTO – Soldiers escort head of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel Hector Beltran Leyva in Mexico City, in this handout picture taken October 1, 2014 and released to Reuters on October 2, 2014 by the Attorney General's Office. REUTERS / Attorney General Office / Handout via Reuters / File Photo
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Hector Beltran Leyva, a Mexican drug lord whose cartel earned a reputation as one of the most vengeful and ruthless, died on Sunday in hospital cardiac arrests .
Beltran Leyva had been incarcerated since March 2, 2016 in Federal Prison Number 1, a maximum security facility in central Altiplano, Mexico, where he was facing federal prosecution for various crimes, the Mexico Interior Ministry said in a statement announcing the death.
Nicknamed "the H," according to the statement, Beltran Leyva's capture in 2014, where he was posed as an art and real estate dealer was seen as a major victory for Mexican authorities in their decade-long war against drug gangs.
The snaring of the Beltran Leyva cartel's bosses dealt with a serious blow to a drug gang after a group of brothers who became infamous for the bloody war with their trained ally, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
Guzman is currently facing trial in Brooklyn.
Authorities said Beltran Leyva, 56, was sent on Sunday from prison to hospital minutes after security officers he had severe pain in his chest that did not respond to first aid from prison doctors.
The statement "noted that, at all times, Beltran Leyva … received the medical attention he required and that the staff of the hospital and the federal center, all of its clinical resources at its disposal."
Reporting by Delphine Schrank; Editing by Chris Reese
