Borderland folk songs immortalize him as smart, ruthless, powerful and rich.

From the Rio Grande to Mexico's Valley of the Beheaded, there is no shortage of stories about "La Barbie," the top-level drug trafficker born in Laredo and arrested Monday in Mexico.

Was Edgar Valdez Villarreal really a star high school football player or just an average guy whose coach nicknamed him La Barbie for his light eyes and fair-haired complexion that set him apart in the Texas border town?

And how did an American who got his start selling dime bags of marijuana have the connections to go on to lead a team of assassins, let alone climb to the summit of Mexico's criminal underworld?

"There is a lot of speculation as to what relationships he had and what relationships led up to where he is now," said Laredo police spokesman Jose Baeza. "He was able to do enough to gain the trust. There is something to be said, that he is an American-born person who reached that rank." ...

But Tuesday, the Texan turned Mexican mobster was paraded before the cameras in Mexico City sporting no less than a green Ralph Lauren Big Pony polo shirt and a slight grin on a slightly bearded face. Government spokesmen said 1,200 officers took part in the culminating moments of a yearlong effort to capture Valdez. ...

Among his drug gangster rivals, he was widely despised, known for viciously ordering the decapitation of his enemies. ...

He says Valdez was first arrested on marijuana charges in Missouri nearly 20 years ago. While he was briefly in custody in Mexico City years later, he met Arturo Beltran Leyva, who became his narco godfather.