- Mexican authorities say they killed cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez
- Officials had already trumpeted his death in 2010 after a shootout
- This time, authorities say they have the body and fingerprints confirm it
- Moreno was known for his “dangerousness,” authorities say
Read this story in Spanish at CNNMexico.com
(CNN) — It’s deja vu, drug lord style.
Mexican authorities say they gunned down notorious cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez on Sunday.
By most measures, it sounds like a major victory in the government’s fight against organized crime. But there’s a catch.
He was supposed to be dead already.
In 2010, then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s government trumpeted Moreno’s death, announcing that he’d been killed after two days of shootouts between armed forces and criminals.
Officials revealed a surprising twist on Sunday, announcing the 2010 report of his death was inaccurate.
Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, executive secretary of Mexico’s National Public Security System, said Moreno was very much alive when federal troops cornered him on Sunday. They planned to arrest him, Rubido said, but Moreno was fatally shot after he opened fire.
For years, rumors have swirled about Moreno. Critics said the Mexican government had never proven that Moreno had been slain after the 2010 announcement.
Federal authorities initially said they couldn’t provide physical evidence because Moreno’s body had been collected by fellow cartel members after clashes.
In 2011, state prosecutors acknowledged they’d never recovered Moreno’s body and couldn’t confirm he was dead.
“We’ve never found a body, fingerprints, photographs,” George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary, told CNN that year. “We know his burial site, but no one has exhumed the body. There are a lot of questions.”
Authorities received numerous reports that Moreno remained alive, Rubido said Sunday,
On Sunday, Mexican authorities said fingerprint tests had confirmed that Moreno was really the one they killed this time, but they were still awaiting DNA test results.
More on the Mexican Drug War
Cartel founder ‘known for his dangerousness’
Moreno — nicknamed “The Craziest One,” “El Chayo” and “The Doctor” — was “known for his dangerousness,” Rubido said Sunday.
He was a founder of La Familia Michoacana, a cartel that started in the western Mexican state of Michoacan and grabbed national attention in 2006 after reportedly hurling five decapitated heads of rival gang members onto a dance floor.
The group began splintering soon after authorities announced Moreno’s death in 2010, and a similar spinoff organization known as
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