Mexico cartel leader's capture will have little effect on drug flow MEXICO CITY - The capture of the top leader of Mexico's most bloodthirsty and bloodcurdling drug cartel will have surprisingly little effect on trafficking of cocaine and other illicit substances to the U.S., and on the violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives here in recent years. If anything, the violence, at least in the short term, may surge as rivals and potential successors of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, alias Z-40, head of the Zetas paramilitary gang, battle to take his place or his turf. But for President Enrique Peña Nieto, the capture is a small coup. The 7-month-old government, marking its first major strike against organized crime, probably hopes the early-Monday arrest near the border town of Nuevo Laredo will score points in the theater of public opinion and especially among skeptics who doubt the new leader's vague and sporadic security policy. FULL COVERAGE: Mexico's drug war His remarks reflected Peña Nieto's insistence on downplaying the drug war. In marked contrast to his predecessor, President Felipe Calderon, whose military-led, U.S.-backed war on powerful cartels claimed more than 70,000 lives in six years, decapitated many organizations, but ultimately did not make a significant dent in trafficking, Peña Nieto has told U.S. advisors to stand down and, to his public, has instead emphasized a more mundane fight against killings, kidnapping and extortion. Peña Nieto, speaking at an event in San Luis Potosi, took the unusual step of thanking state authorities along with the navy. In most states, certainly in Tamaulipas, where Treviño was captured, local authorities are so corrupt that federal drug interdictions take place without their knowledge. "Yesterday, thanks to the good coordination that exists between the government of the republic and state government agencies charged with security," he said, "the apprehension of one of the most wanted criminals in our country was made possible." Analysts said the important capture would be used by the government as proof of its commitment to the drug war and possibly to distract from much vaunted reform programs that are not going so well. Areas of cartel influence in Mexico Source: Stratfor "It does not sit badly at all that the capture comes when around the world doubts are surfacing about [Peña Nieto's] reform agenda," the hallmark of his administration, Carlos Puig, a journalist and political analyst, wrote in a column Tuesday in Mileno newspaper. But the value of Z-40 is something else and enormous: It gives breathing room" to a government that has yet to articulate its strategy, Puig said. Officially, Washington congratulated the Mexican government, and notably the well-regarded navy special forces who caught Treviño as he moved before dawn with two lieutenants in a pickup with a load of guns and $2 million in cash. "His ruthless leadership has now come to an end," the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement. Experts say they are like a worm, where authorities can cut off pieces, but the worm lives on. However, the Zetas, who dominate most of the eastern coast of Mexico and have operations in at least eight states plus the U.S. and Central America, are increasingly exposed as more of a series of franchises than a coherent, hierarchical organization. A lack of strict command and control means members of an already vicious group can become more evilly ferocious at a local level, where citizens and migrants are at their unmitigated mercy. In that dynamic, the demise of Z-40 may not have great impact.