( CNN ) -- One of the main suspects in the killings of 49 people in northern Mexico received orders from the top leaders of the Zetas cartel , a military official said Monday . Daniel de Jesus Elizondo Ramirez hurled a grenade and fired at troops with a rifle as they closed in on him , Brig . Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas told reporters . After his capture Friday outside Monterrey , Mexico , he disclosed details of the brutal slayings , Villegas said . Elizondo , also known as `` El Loco '' ( `` The Madman '' ) , is a local leader of the Zetas drug cartel in Cadereyta , Nuevo Leon , the northern Mexican city where authorities found the decapitated and dismembered bodies abandoned along a highway last week , Villegas said . The grisly discovery on May 13 drew international attention but was met with a muted response from some Mexicans living in the area , where intensifying turf battles between rival cartels have made violence a daily reality . Authorities announced Elizondo 's arrest Sunday and presented him to the media Monday , detailing his alleged involvement in kidnappings and killings in northern Mexico , and in the Zetas ' efforts to expand their reach into Guatemala . Orders for abandoning the 49 mutilated bodies last week came from the highest levels of the Zetas , Villegas said , including Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano , the group 's top leader . Elizondo and an accomplice were ordered to abandon the bodies in the town 's central square , but instead left them on the outskirts , Villegas said . Authorities described him as `` one of the suspects responsible '' for last week 's killings but did not specify how he was involved in the slayings . He will be detained for 40 days while authorities build their case against him , prosecutors said . The whereabouts of the suspected accomplice , another member of the Zetas who escaped during a prison uprising in February , were unclear . Last week , Mexico 's interior minister said the 49 decapitated bodies were the result of a fierce feud over territory and power between the Zetas and members of the allied Gulf and Sinaloa cartels . Banners hanging throughout the country , purportedly from the Zetas , said the notoriously ruthless cartel had nothing to do with the gruesome crime . `` This was part of a strategy to blame the actions on opposing criminal organizations ... to cause confusion among authorities and in the public opinion , '' Villegas said Monday . The Zetas began with deserters from Mexican special forces , who quickly gained a reputation for ruthless violence as hired assassins for Mexico 's Gulf cartel . The partnership between the two criminal groups ended in 2010 . Now , officials say the Gulf cartel is allied with the Sinaloa cartel , one of the nation 's most powerful drug trafficking groups . Elizondo confessed his involvement in other attacks against authorities and members of the Gulf cartel , Villegas said , including carrying out kidnappings and executions and transporting bodies to an area where they were buried or burned . He also traveled to Guatemala with a group of Zetas hit men in 2008 , battling over territory with drug gangs there , Villegas said . Authorities have not released the identities of the victims of last week 's killings in northern Mexico . Last week , officials said investigators were seeking DNA samples from families of missing people nationwide in their efforts to identify the bodies . That will be the only way to identify the victims -- whose killers cut off their heads , hands and feet -- Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene told reporters . More than 47,500 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006 , when Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced plans to deploy troops in efforts to combat cartels . According to Mexico 's National Human Rights Commission , more than 5,300 people have disappeared throughout the country in that same time period , and the bodies of 9,000 dead have not been identified . Officials fear the total number of missing could be far higher , because many disappearances go unreported . CNNMexico.com contributed to this report .
NEW : Authorities detail violence , turf battles between cartels . Suspect hurled a grenade and fired at troops as they closed in , a military official says . Known as `` El Loco , '' authorities say Nuevo Leon is a Nuevo Leon cartel leader in Elizondo state . Announcement of his capture comes Monday after one bodies were found along a highway .