MEXICO CITY – Mexican marines gunned down one of Mexico’s most feared drug lords outside a baseball game near the Texas border, then handed over the body to local authorities in a town where it was snatched by armed men in a pre-dawn raid on a funeral home, officials said Tuesday.

The theft of the body believed to belong to Zetas founding member Heriberto Lazcano adds a bizarre and embarrassing twist to one of the most significant victories in Mexico’s militarized battle with organized crime, two months before the man who sharply expanded it, President Felipe Calderon, leaves office.

Officials said that, with the body missing, the remaining evidence of Lazcano’s fall consists of three fingerprints and a few photos of the army special forces deserter whose brutal paramilitary tactics helped define the devastating six-year war among Mexico’s drug gangs and authorities.