TIJUANA, Mexico – Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental, one of Mexico's most-wanted and brutal drug traffickers, was detained Tuesday, in the second major victory for the government in less than a month.

Security forces captured Garcia in an early morning raid on a smart residential area in the seaside city of La Paz, on the northwestern Baja California peninsula, officials said.

Later Tuesday, authorities presented Garcia to journalists in Mexico City.

Garcia "was one of the most sought after (criminals) by the governments of Mexico and the United States," said Ramon Pequeno, an official with the federal police.

Garcia is on a list of Mexico's 24 most-wanted drug lords, with a reward of up to 2.3 million dollars offered for his capture.

He is also blamed for a spike in particularly gruesome violence in the border city of Tijuana.

Another person, who was not identified, was also detained in the raid early Tuesday, officials said.

"The roar of several helicopters woke us up and we found the area surrounded by soldiers," local resident Mario Zamora told AFP.

The arrest is a second major victory for President Felipe Calderon's controversial clampdown on organized crime, after top drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed in a shootout with marines in a raid south of Mexico City on December 16.

Garcia is officially part of the Arellano Felix, or Tijuana, cartel, but is now suspected of fighting them for control of the border city across from San Diego, in the United States.

Baja California authorities say Garcia broke off an alliance with the Arellano Felix cartel in January 2008 after a bloody gunfight, and now backs Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman -- head of the rival Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's most wanted man.

He is suspected to be one of the country's most violent drug traffickers and blamed for a wave of attacks in Tijuana in recent years.

A hitman called "The soup maker" last year confessed to dissolving hundreds of bodies in acid for Garcia.

More than 15,000 people have died in spiraling drug violence in the past three years across Mexico, particularly in northern border areas on lucrative trafficking routes into the United States.

Tijuana, with around 600 violent deaths in 2009, is the country's second most violent city, after the notorious border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Baja California Sur, home to the tourist resorts of Los Cabos as well as La Paz, has much lower levels of violence than the northern area of Baja California, where Tijuana lies.

Calderon has staked his presidency on his clampdown on spiraling drug violence, including the deployment of some 50,000 troops across the country.

Police also arrested Carlos Beltran Leyva on December 30 in the drug-plagued northwestern state of Sinaloa, just two weeks after the slaying of his more notorious and powerful brother, Arturo.