 In 2009–10, a counter-narcotics offensive by Mexican and U.S. government agencies produced the arrest of at least 345 suspected La Familia members in the U.S., and the incorrectly presumed death of one of the cartel's founders, Nazario Moreno González, on December 9, 2010.The cartel then divided into the Knights Templar Cartel and a José de Jesús Méndez Vargas-led faction, which kept the name La Familia.Following the cartel's fragmentation in late 2010 and early 2011, the La Familia Cartel under Méndez Vargas fought the Knights Templar Cartel but on June 21, 2011 Méndez Vargas was arrested by Mexican authorities and in mid-2011 the attorney general in Mexico (PGR) stated that La Familia Cartel had been "exterminated", leaving only the splinter group, the Knights Templar Cartel.