Drug cartel's top accountant found slain

MEXICO CITY — Mexican marines in the violent border state of Tamaulipas found the body of the alleged top accountant for the Gulf Cartel drug trafficking network, who had apparently been shot to death, the navy said Wednesday.

A statement said the marines found the body of Cesar Davila Garcia in a house Tuesday after they received a tip from a citizen. A pistol was also found near him and the marines were sending his body for autopsy.

Davila had been the accountant for leading cartel figure Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also known as "Tony Tormenta," who was killed by federal forces last November, the navy said. Garcia was then tapped to be a local leader of the cartel and later was made the primary accountant for the organization, it said.

Salvage crew boards grounded cargo ship

TAURANGA, New Zealand — A salvage crew today finally managed to board a cargo ship that has spilled hundreds of tons of oil since striking a reef off New Zealand, and was racing to assess whether oil can be pumped from the ship before the vessel breaks up.

Heavy seas had kept the salvage team away for days, but a break in the weather allowed three crew members to be winched on board the Liberian-flagged Rena, which ran aground Oct. 5 on Astrolabe Reef, 14 miles from Tauranga Harbour on New Zealand's North Island. About 88 containers have fallen off the deck of the 775-foot vessel as it has listed increasingly in stormy ocean conditions, and the vessel has been fractured by a large crack.

This story was originally published October 13, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Drug cartel's top accountant found slain."