Mexican authorities on Wednesday caught Hector Beltran Leyva, the last remaining leader of a once-powerful, but still-violent drug cartel.

Beltran Leyva was captured by Mexican army troops as he was eating in a seafood restaurant in the tourist haunt of San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. The soldiers apprehended him without firing a single shot.

Authorities conducted several tests to ensure that the man they captured was in fact Beltran Leyva, said Tomas Zeron, head of the criminal investigation agency in the Mexican attorney general's office.

The arrest was made after an 11-month sting that honed in on what remains of the Beltran Leyva cartel, which once was powerful enough to rival the notorious Sinaloa cartel. Beltran Leyva, known as "El H," was the last remaining of a generation of brothers who ran the family cartel.

The Beltran Leyva cartel for years was among the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico, incubated in the womb of the Mexican drug trade that also bore the Sinaloa cartel, among others.

The Beltran Leyva organization began its decline in 2009 when one of the leaders, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed in a shootout with Mexican special forces. At the time, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency called the killing "a crippling blow to one of the most violent cartels in the world."

Other Beltran Leyva brothers maintained control and operations of the cartel, but it suffered further setbacks by arrests of two of the brothers and having it's market share shrunk.

"Obviously this is not the Beltran Leyvas' organization in its strongest moment ... but it continues to be a criminal organization capable of generating localized violence in some states," said Mexican security official Jorge Chabat, Fox News reported.

But the cartel appeared to be gaining strength after expanding its criminal activities, prompting the U.S. government to put a $5 million price on the arrest of El H, who had been leading the gang.

Beltran Leyva's capture comes just months after the arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel and one of the planet's most-wanted criminals.