MEXICO CITY, Feb 15, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Dutch drug trafficker who was one of Europe's most wanted criminals and once reportedly faked his own death has been murdered in Mexico, an official said Friday.

Marco Ebben, 32, was shot on Thursday in Atizapan de Zaragoza, a municipality about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the capital Mexico City.

Experts confirmed Ebben's identity, an official at the state prosecutor's office told AFP, asking not to be named because they were not authorized to talk about the case.

European law enforcement agency Europol listed Ebben as one of Europe's "most wanted fugitives" for smuggling drugs from Brazil to the Netherlands.

Its website says he was sentenced in October 2020 to more than seven years in prison.

Between 2014 and 2015, Ebben and his accomplices allegedly smuggled 400 kilos of cocaine in containers filled with pineapples, according to Europol.

To evade arrest, the Dutchman reportedly faked his death last October in the Mexican cartel stronghold of Culiacan amid a turf war between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to local media, Ebben was accused of links to one of the factions but no evidence of his death was found at the time, except for a statement from an alleged girlfriend who claimed to have recognized the body.

The violence in Sinaloa follows the surprise arrest on US soil of cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada in late July, which is believed to have unleashed an internal power struggle.

Mexican authorities said Friday they had arrested a suspected Sinaloa Cartel drug trafficker active in the northern state of Chihuahua who was wanted by the United States.

Local media identified him as Humberto Rivera, alias "El Chato," "El Don" or "El Viejon."