THE MEXICAN NAVY KILLS THE BOSS OF BOSSES!

Mexico's vicious "Boss of Bosses" and three members of his drug cartel were killed in a two-hour gunbattle with a navy assault team, authorities reported Thursday.
The killing of Arturo Beltran Leyva - notorious for numerous murders and beheadings - marks one of the biggest victories in President Filipe Calderon's drug war.

The shootout Wednesday in Cuernavaca came after months of killings and violence in the region.

On the same day, the severed heads of six state police investigators were found on a public plaza in the northern Mexican state of Durango.

The mutilated bodies of some of the victims were found with notes signed "Boss of Bosses," Beltran Leyva's nickname.

Last year, the U.S government added Beltran Leyva and his cartel to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act denying him access to the U.S. financial system.

The Mexican government had placed the drug kingpin on its Most Wanted list and offered a $2.1 million reward for his capture.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says the Beltran Leyva cartel smuggles tons of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. each year.

Beltran Leyva and three of his cohorts were killed as 200 Mexican sailors raided the upscale apartment complex where he was holed up. A fifth cartel member committed suicide during the shootout.

Cartel gunmen hurled grenades that injured three sailors, the navy said. An Associated Press reporter at the scene heard at least 10 explosions.

Beltran Levya is the highest-ranking figure taken down since Calderon deployed more than 45,000 troops to crush the cartels after taking office in December 2006. The offensive has earned Calderon praise from Washington even as 14,000 people have been killed in waves of drug-related violence.

On Friday, sailors raided a party at mansion in the mountain down of Tepotzlan, near Cuernavaca, where they killed three alleged Beltran Leyva cartel members and detained 11.

In one of the biggest blows to the gang, several top federal law enforcement officials were arrested in late 2008 for allegedly protecting and leaking confidential information to the cartel.

Alfredo Beltran Levya, one of the druglords's five brothers - all said to be involved in the drug trade - was arrested in January 2008.