Top 10 Notorious Mexican Drug Lords

The ongoing Mexican government campaign has led to the killing of two major drug lords, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez and Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas at the end of 2010, and the arrest in June 2011 of Moreno's apparent successor Jesus Mendez Vargas. All this, however, offers small encouragement as Mexico tries to rein in the powerful drug cartels that have wreaked havoc across the country. TIME looks at 10 of the country's most prominent gangsters — dead or alive.

Not Your Pancho Villa

Heriberto Lazcano

By Ioan GrilloWednesday, June 22, 2011
dek
Reuters / Corbis

Aliases: The Executioner, El Lazca, Z-3
Affiliation: Los Zetas
Born: Dec. 25, 1974, in Veracruz
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Lazcano served in the Mexican armed forces as part of the elite Airborne Special Forces Group. He reportedly received U.S. and Israeli military training, but defected in the late 1990s to work as an enforcer for the Gulf cartel. He has since broken off to head one of the most murderous gangs in the Mexican drug war, the Zetas — allegedly responsible for the recent massacre of 72 migrants.

UPDATE: Lazcano was reportedly killed on October 9, 2012 in a gunfight with marines in Coahuila, a northern Mexico border state, according to information from the Mexican navy.

Next Vicente Carrillo Fuentes