Drugs baron’s YouTube photos go viral in Mexico

Police in Mexico are a step closer to capturing the leader of the Tijuana cartel, which controls drugs trafficking routes into California, after a YouTube slideshow of his holiday photographs was confirmed as authentic by the country's Attorney General.

The photographs, apparently posted last year by a member of the gang - also known as the Arellano Felix cartel - are of Fernando Sanchez Arellano. He is believed to have taken over the organisation after the arrest of his uncle, Francisco Javier Arellano El Tigrillo, off the coast of Baja California in August 2006.

The Attorney General's office has used one of the holiday snaps to update its list of most wanted criminals. Sanchez Arellano - also known as 'el ingeniero' (the engineer) - is at number 17.

The video has now gone viral as Mexicans take the opportunity to enjoy a glimpse of the life of the leader of a cartel that while weakened in recent years was once one of the country's most feared.

The photographs are all pictures of Arellano with an unnamed women in what the Mexican press say are tourist destinations in the state of Baja California Sur.

Although these photographs are thought to have been uploaded by someone close to Sanchez Arellano - if not the drugs baron himself - YouTube is well known in Mexico as a battleground for the drugs cartels, who use it to show off their firepower or post confessions extracted under torture in order to get rivals arrested. ·