Mexican security forces on Tuesday arrested accused drug kingpin Damaso Lopez, who was believed to be locked in a bloody struggle for control of the Sinaloa Cartel against the sons of its captured leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The attorney general's office announced that its agents, with the help of the army, had captured Lopez, 51, one of the top-ranking figures in the world's most successful drug cartel, which has been destabilized by the extradition of Guzman to the United States in January.

Guzman's imprisonment triggered a violent power struggle that has led to daylight gunbattles involving truck-mounted machine guns in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, with Mexican officials attributing the bloodshed to a tussle between Lopez and Guzman's sons.