Mexican federal police arrested a suspected leader of the Los Zetas cartel in the violence-racked Gulf coast state of Veracruz, officials said Saturday.

Amado Mercado Guerrero, a former police officer in several towns of Veracruz and the purported head of a Zetas cell in the northern part of the state, was arrested Friday, the federal Public Safety Secretariat said in a statement.

Authorities said several kidnapping probes in that region led them to Mercado, whose area of influence covered the Veracruz municipalities of Tlapacoyan, Martinez de la Torre, San Rafael, Vega de Alatorre, Tuxpan and Poza Rica, the statement said.