By MARÍA VERZA, Associated Press

Troy Warren for CNT #EditorsPicks

MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers have captured the wife of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, authorities said Tuesday.

In a joint statement, the Attorney General’s Office, Defense Department and National Intelligence Center said that Rosalinda “N” was captured Monday in Zapopan, Jalisco. It said she was allegedly involved in the illicit finances of organized crime in Jalisco.

A federal official, commenting about the case on condition of anonymity, said the woman arrested was Rosalinda González Valencia, the wife of Jalisco cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera.

The government said the arrest was “a significant hit” against the cartel’s financial structure.

González Valencia was previously arrested in May 2018 but later released.

The Jalisco cartel is arguably Mexico’s most powerful and violent. It made its reputation with brazen attacks on Mexico’s security forces, including an assassination attempt on Mexico City’s police chief last year in the capital, that wounded him and left three people dead. In 2015, cartel gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

It has ruthlessly expanded its territory beyond Jalisco, spurring bloodshed in states including Guanajuato and Michoacan, as well as reaching its tentacles into Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts in Quintana Roo.

The cartel’s main business is trafficking drugs to the United States, especially methamphetamine and fentanyl.