Mexico ? Federal troops stormed a seaside vacation home and captured one of the country’s most brutal drug lords Tuesday, the second time in less than a month that Mexico has taken down one of its most powerful traffickers.

The arrest, near the city of La Paz, was considered another victory for enhanced surveillance techniques cultivated with U.S. assistance. American anti-drug officials had been helping Mexican authorities track Teodoro Garcia Simental for more than five months.

Garcia, known as “El Teo,” was arrested before dawn near the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, where his gang had been bringing in planeloads of drugs to smuggle across the U.S. border, said Ramon Eduardo Pequeno, head of the federal police’s anti-drug unit.