Adan Medrano Rodriguez was detained by agents of Mexico's Federal Agency of
                 Investigation in the northern state of Tamaulipas on Wednesday night, Justice
                 Department officials told a news conference. He was transferred early Thursday to
                 Mexico City, where he is being detained.

                 Medrano, the alleged right-hand man of presumed Gulf drug organization leader
                 Osiel Cardenas, also was wanted by the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement
                 Administration and Interpol on drug charges and for allegedly threatening federal
                 agents in Texas.

                 Mexican authorities staking out Medrano captured him as he was trying to get into
                 a sport utility vehicle without license plates, said Justice Department Special
                 Prosecutor Estuardo Bermudez Molina.

                 Medrano, who allegedly organized operations in the northern zone of the drug
                 gang's Gulf coast drug-trafficking corridor, was carrying a .38-caliber pistol, but
                 did not resist arrest, Bermudez said.

                 Medrano gained stature in the organization after Cardenas' former alleged first
                 lieutenant, Juan Manuel Garza, surrendered to U.S. authorities in Texas last June.

                 Medrano is wanted in Mexico on charges of cocaine trafficking, attempted murder,
                 illegal arms possession and organized crime. U.S. authorities have requested his
                 extradition to face charges of possessing and attempting to distribute marijuana and
                 threatening federal agents.

                 Police say that on Nov. 9, 1999, Medrano, Cardenas and other assailants stopped a
                 car with diplomatic plates in Texas, and threatened the lives of the three occupants,
                 including an FBI agent and a DEA agent.

                 The United States offered a $2 million reward for Medrano's capture, but Mexican
                 authorities are not eligible to receive the money, Bermudez said.

                 Some of the informants who helped Mexican authorities find Medrano will receive
                 some of the money, however, he said, without elaborating.

                 U.S. authorities also have offered a $2 million reward for Cardenas, who remains at
                 large. Cardenas allegedly inherited a large portion of the Gulf organization after
                 former leader Juan Garcia Abrego was arrested in 1996. Garcia is serving 11 life
                 terms in the United States.

                 Police allege that the Gulf organization is one of Mexico's top drug-smuggling
                 operations.

                 Bermudez described Medrano's arrest as a "major advance" against the group: Both
                 of the organization's powerful lieutenants have been captured.

                 Medrano joins a growing list of important drug-related arrests in Mexico recently.
                 The most significant was the capture on March 9 of Benjamin Arellano Felix,
                 allegedly the brains behind a large Tijuana-based drug organization police say he ran
                 with his brother Ramon Arellano Felix.

                 Investigators say Ramon, on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list, was killed in a shootout
                 with police on February 10 in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.

                 On March 14, federal agents captured Manuel Herrera Barraza, alias "El Tarzan,"
                 allegedly the Arellano Felixes' principal smuggler of marijuana and cocaine into the
                 western United States.

                  Copyright 2002 The Associated Press