Vazquez, who said he was part of an unidentified local organized crime group, has already admitted being behind 45 killings and ‘is related to at least 79 murders, most of them committed in 2012,’ Domene told a news conference.

Vasquez  was arrested October 8 along with 25-year-old Nancy Ortiz. Officers seized 35 baggies of weed and 22 packets of cocaine from the pair of dealers, according to state officials.

An unnamed Mexican official told CNN that Vasquez belonged to the powerful Gulf Cartel, which has been waging a deadly turf war against the rival Zetas cartel.

The 20-year-old has been in organized crime since the age of 15,  according to AFP, rising through the ranks from an informant to a drug dealer before finally graduating to a hit man.

Among Vasquez’s alleged victims was a transit officer who pulled him over; a stripper who had been kidnapped from a club, and a woman who was murdered for walking with a member of a rival cartel.

Mexico has suffered from a wave of drug-related violence, with about 1,000 people a month dying in gangland killings. About 80,000 people have died since 2007 in cartel violence.

Monterrey, the capital of the crime-ravaged state of Nuevo Leon, has recorded 223 homicides so far this year.