Mexico Arrests Mass-Murderer Named After a Hand Puppet
A Mexican drug kingpin who left behind a trail of 600 bodies, many of them dismembered and decapitated, has been arrested. Oscar Garcia, 36, was the leader of The Hand with Eyes — a brutal drug gang responsible for bringing the extreme drug-war violence typically found in northern Mexico into Mexico City and its suburbs.
Garcia is a former mafia bodyguard who split off to start his own psychopathic import-export business. As is the custom, he too had an adorable nickname completely ill-suited to his terrifying reputation: They called him "El Compayito," after a popular, Señor Wences-style puppet — hence the name "The Hand with Eyes." (And here I thought it was some high-minded reference to Pan's Labyrinth or something.)
Here's the original El Compayito on a Mexican talk show. That passes for entertainment in Mexico? He looks like a hermit crab with rheumatoid arthritis. [AP, photo via AP]