Drug lord terrorizing Mexico is a U.S. citizen

The Houston Chronicle reported a grisly scene from Taxco, Mexico: The decomposing remains of 56 bodies and four heads were found at the bottom of an old, 600-foot-deep silver-mine shaft. Investigators say many of the victims were thrown into the pit while they were still alive.

Whom do Mexican authorities blame? None other than Texas-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, who has reached the second-in-command position in the Sinaloa drug cartel. In that capacity, he's been waging a bloody turf war against the rival Gulf cartel. Authorities say Valdez ordered his henchmen to dump the cartel's enemies in the mine. Around Taxco, which is about 100 miles southwest of Mexico City in the state of Guerrero, the war has claimed 400 lives so far this year.

U.S. authorities have been trying to catch Valdez for years — he is the only American citizen known to hold a high-ranking position in a cartel. An indictment against Valdez unsealed in Atlanta, Georgia, last week accuses him of supplying thousands of pounds of cocaine to the Atlanta area. (He now has open indictments against him in three U.S. states.) Valdez was "chief enforcer" for the Sinaloa gang's boss, Arturo Beltrán Leyva; when Leyva broke away to start his own cartel, Valdez went with him. But when Leyva died in shootout with Mexican authorities late last year, that left Valdez jockeying for control of the cartel, reports Jason Buch in the San Antonio Express-News. It's unclear just now, however, whether he can claim control of the new cartel.

It is clear, however, that Valdez is the most powerful U.S. member of any Mexican drug cartel — a distinction that the federal Drug Enforcement Agency recently confirmed. The U.S. State Department is offering $2 million for information that would lead to his arrest, while the Mexican government is offering a $2.3 million bounty.

The 36-year-old used to play high school football in Laredo, Texas, and was nicknamed "La Barbie" for his light hair and eyes by his coach. The spring of his senior year of high school, he was arrested for criminally negligent homicide, purportedly after  speeding in his car and colliding into another car, killing the driver. He was not convicted at trial.