In cargo pants and a T-shirt, the skinny, American-born 14-year-old looked like he should be in middle school. Instead he was surrounded by three armed Mexican soldiers in ski masks and camouflage as he told reporters that he helped a Mexican drug gang behead four people. 
 
 Mexican army soldiers escort a 14-year-old suspected of working as a killer for a drug cartel in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico, Friday Dec. 3, 2010. The much-rumored alleged young assassin nicknamed... (Associated Press) 
 
 Mexican officials say they arrested the youth known as "El Ponchis" late Thursday at an airport south of Mexico City with a 19-year-old sister who is accused of helping him dump the bodies. Authorities said he was caught with two cell phones that held photographs of tortured victims. 
 
 Many youths have been used by drug cartels in their bloody battles against the government and each other, but the story of El Ponchis may be the most shocking. A YouTube video that emerged a month ago sparked talk of a child hit man _ said by some to be as young as 12. 
 
 "I participated in four executions, but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't, they would kill me," the boy said calmly when he was handed over to the federal prosecutor Friday morning, showing no remorse. 
 
 Authorities identified the curly-haired suspect by his first name only _ Edgar. 
 
 He told reporters early Friday he was kidnapped at the age of 11 and forced to work for the Cartel of the South Pacific, a branch of the splintered Beltran Leyva gang, and that he had participated in at least four decapitations. 
 
 Authorities said the siblings were detained at an airport near Cuernavaca in Morelos state with paid tickets to flee the country. 
 
 Morelos Gov. Marco Adame Castillo said the boy was born in San Diego, California, and Mexican officials were researching whether he has dual nationality. A U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to embassy policy said American officials had not yet confirmed his citizenship. 
 
 The boy's sister said they were headed for Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and seek refuge with their stepmother in San Diego. Their mother sent them money for the tickets, she said, but it was not clear where their parents are. 
 
 The army did not say whether the children had passed security when they were detained. Neither has been formally charged. 
 
 The two allegedly worked for Julio "El Negro" Padilla, who has been fighting for control of the drug trade in Morelos, formerly part of the territory under the Beltran Leyva gang, which broke up with the killing of leader Arturo Beltran Leyva by Mexican marines a year ago. The battle among remnants of the gang has caused an unprecedented spike in violence in Morelos and in neighboring Guerrero state, where the resort city of Acapulco is located. 
 
 El Ponchis' sister said she was the girlfriend of Padilla and part of a group of girls called Las Chabelas, who helped dump bodies on streets and freeways in and around Cuernavaca, a city about 56 miles (90 kilometers) south of Mexico City. She said her brother introduced them. 
 
 An adult sister picked up at the airport appeared with the two Friday, but authorities said she has no ties to drug trafficking. 
 
 Stories of a hit boy, maybe as young as 12, spread after a YouTube video appeared last month with teens mugging for the camera next to corpses and guns. One boy on the video alleged that "El Ponchis" was his accomplice. State and federal authorities refused to confirm El Ponchis even existed. 
 
 In the video, the youth told an unseen questioner that his gang was paid $3,000 per killing. 
 
 "When we don't find the rivals, we kill innocent people, maybe a construction worker or a taxi driver," the youth is heard saying. 
 
 Figures obtained by The Associated Press from Mexico's attorney general's office show that the number of youths 18 and under detained for drug-related crimes has climbed steadily since President Felipe Calderon launched his assault on cartels in 2006. There were 482 that year and 810 in 2009. There were 562 in the first eight months of this year, on track to surpass last year. 
 
 Calderon has acknowledged that "in the most violent areas of the country, there is an unending recruitment of young people without hope, without opportunities." 
 
 The federal government has said the cartels are recruiting ever younger assassins to replace those killed or arrested in the current wars among the gangs and with the government. The government also has said that cartels prefer underage youths because they shorter sentences if caught. 
 
 Unlike the United States, Mexico has no system for trying juveniles as adults, though a bill that would establish such a provision is before the Mexican Senate. In Mexico, juveniles are sentenced to youth detention centers and are freed at age 18. 
 
 Although state courts handle crimes by juveniles in Mexico, authorities in Morelos have asked Mexico's federal government to take over the case because of the gravity of the crimes. 
 
 Neighbors said the siblings were living in a cartel safehouse in a poor neighborhood of Jiutepec, a working-class suburb of Cuernavaca. The area has an industrial area with Nissan, Unilever and other factories, rustic single-level concrete homes and some farms. 
 
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 Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report from Cancun. ||||| Antonio Sierra, AP 
 
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 (Dec. 3) -- A 14-year-old boy suspected of being a paid assassin for Mexican drug smugglers and taking part in beheadings was arrested as he tried to flee to his native California , media reports said.The boy -- who allegedly says he has worked for the South Pacific drug cartel since he was 11 years old -- was arrested Thursday night as he tried to board a plane in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. He was traveling with two of his sisters.Known by the nickname "El Ponchis," the teen has allegedly admitted to participating in at least four decapitations, The Associated Press reported . His first name is Edgar, but AOL News is withholding his last name because he is underage."I participated in four executions, but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't, they would kill me," the teen said, according to the AP.Drug-related violence has intensified in Mexico as cartels battle one another and the army to gain access to the multibillion-dollar U.S. market. The bloodshed has increasingly moved south from the border region to previously quiet locations such as Cuernavaca and business center Monterrey.Edgar was born in San Diego and thus has U.S. citizenship. He was arrested as he tried to fly to the Mexican border city of Tijuana. Once there, he reportedly planned to cross the border to San Diego.Authorities are checking to see if he is also a Mexican citizen, Reuters reported.Rumors about the existence of a child hit man nicknamed "El Ponchis" have been circulating for weeks. He was tied to a string of murders, including beheadings.Edgar allegedly received $2,500 for each killing, Reuters reported, citing a local media story. The minimum wage in Mexico is less than $5 a day.The teen and six men allegedly confessed to killing people and hanging their bodies from bridges in Cuernavaca, Agence France-Presse reported . Cartels have taken to displaying their victims in public as a means of intimidating local authorities and the media.Authorities say Edgar's teenage sisters were accomplices in the killings, often acting as decoys to lure victims. Some media reports even say that one of the sisters was the lover of a cartel boss. The AP quoted a source as saying that one of the sisters was accused of disposing of victims' bodies by dumping them on streets.It is not clear what the nickname "El Ponchis" refers to. ||||| On a warm day in May, members of a blossoming Mexican narco syndicate went on the attack. They blocked more than 30 roads with smoldering tankers, boxing in the city of Guadalajara. In broad daylight, they lit ATMs and banks on fire. When the military came after them, cartel members shot down a helicopter with RPGs and then executed the soldiers inside. It was a brazen and terrifying display of power. “There was panic. No one knew what was going to happen next,” says Pedro Guerrero Haro, a forensics investigator who ended up sorting through the mess. 
 
 As authorities celebrate recapturingJoaquín Guzmán Loera, the kingpin better known as El Chapo, experts say an even more dangerous figure is on the loose — one who hasn’t been arrested but who is believed to have orchestrated the bloody siege in Guadalajara. His name is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes — or just El Mencho.Over the past few years, he’s risen to commanding heights in the landscape of Mexican narcotrafficking, rivaling the power El Chapo once had. The cartel he leads has chosen to seize power by any means necessary — including, apparently, rocket launchers. “He’s the top crime boss right now in Mexico,” according to Tristan Reed, a Mexican security analyst for the global intelligence firm Stratfor. 
 
 It takes a certain brilliance to map your way in today’s drug wars, in which erratic and ever-shifting narco networks battle it out in ever more brutal fashion. While the federales have had mixed success in recent years picking off the jefes — the catch-and-release saga of El Chapo is a case in point — even their victories have a downside, in that each one basically creates a power vacuum. A gaggle of smaller cartels are fighting to fill it, wreaking havoc on Mexico’s streets as they compete for market share. The stakes have only grown as the drug supply chain has extended from the U.S. to China to Europe. 
 
 All this chaos and change has given El Mencho his chance: He’s shown a foxlike dexterity for adapting to circumstance, whether it’s switching allegiances or moving to meth from heroin — all while going unseen. Indeed, while he hasn’t gotten much press outside Mexico, El Mencho and hisCártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación have expanded territory from coast to coast, becoming the most global of all the Mexican suppliers. “He’s different from some who might want to be feared but aren’t trying to build a territorial dynasty,” says Everard Meade, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. A businessman with a military mindset, El Mencho has focused on tightening and lengthening his supply chain, and demolishing competitors or anyone else who might get in the way. 
 
 Nearly as much lore as substance, the kingpin is rumored to be a former police officer originally from Aguililla city or Uruapan, both in Michoacán. The United States Treasury Department, which froze his assets in April, says El Mencho did time in U.S. prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin. Otherwise, he’s managed to evade the authorities, unlike his 24-year-old son, El Menchito, who’s been arrested three times now. Yet even those who’ve studied El Mencho closely can’t agree on his first name; some say it’s Nemesio, others Ruben. The law enforcement background would make sense, though, experts say, given his precise tactics and willingness to wage war against the government. Which, by the way, he seems to be winning. 
 
 About 60,000 people were murdered in Mexico between 2006 and 2012, according to Human Rights Watch. 
 
 The Mexican drug trade has long existed, of course, but the past 15 years have seen a deadly shift in the balance of power. When Mexico had a one-party political system, the government could more easily set the terms with cartels, Meade says. Typically, the exchange went like this: The government promised to leave cartels alone so long as its agents got their cut. But in 2000, the political system opened up to multiple parties, giving cartels more leverage. Instead of the government taxing the drug runners, it’s now the other way around: “The cartels set the terms,” says Meade. And their use of violence has shifted too. Murder is no longer a way of shielding the black market from public view; it’s become a tool“to terrify local governments and people into submission,” Meade says. According to numbers from Human Rights Watch, about 60,000 people were murdered in Mexico between 2006 and 2012, a death toll El Mencho is only accelerating. 
 
 Not long before the helicopter incident, his men assassinated 15 Jalisco police officers,according to Mexican authorities. A YouTube search produces gruesome videos of killing and torture that CJNG takes credit for. One, which was recently taken down, showed a father and his teenage son wrapped in explosives; they detonate the kid first so dad can watch. When businesses don’t pay their “taxes,” it’s a grenade through the front door, residents of Guadalajara say. Yet nothing compares to when El Mencho’s CJNG allegedly killed 35 members of Los Zetas, a rival gang, several years ago. Before killing their victims, cartel members tortured them, cutting off ears and limbs. The victims’ mutilated bodies were dumped on the highway at rush hour, news reports said. 
 
 As the past few years have shown, fighting the cartels is a deadly game of whack-a-mole. Take down El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel and a new, more heinous monster rises in its place. Indeed, El Mencho has seemed to learn from the mistakes of his high-profile predecessor, remaining a shadow in an already dark underworld. And as the authorities renew their chase of El Chapo, El Mencho will likely recede further — and flourish. Turns out, says Reed, “El Chapo’s escape may have bought El Mencho some more time to remain at-large.”
– A notorious hit man in Mexico known for beheading his victims and displaying them in public is a US-born kid all of 14 years old, reports AP. Mexican authorities arrested the youth identified only as Edgar—who they say goes by "El Ponchis," or the cloaked one—as he tried to leave the country by plane. He said he's worked for a cartel since he was 11, after being kidnapped. "I participated in four executions," he said, "but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't, they would kill me." He carried two cell phones with photos of tortured victims, say police, who also arrested an older sister accused of helping him dispose of corpses. Mexican authorities say the youth is a native of San Diego, though his US citizenship remains unconfirmed. Rumors of the young hit man emerged about a month ago with a YouTube video that showed teens mugging for the camera next to corpses. One of them named "El Ponchis" as an accomplice. Click here for more.