Mexican authorities said on Monday they had detained the man suspected of ordering the killing of journalist Miroslava Breach, who was shot dead outside her home in March.

The governor for the northern state of Chihuahua described Juan Carlos Moreno Ochoa as the "intellectual author" of the 54-year-old Breach's killing.

The state's attorney general, Cesar Augusto Peniche, told the Reforma newspaper that the 43-year-old suspect is allegedly a member of the "Los Salazar" criminal organization, a faction of the country's notorious Sinaloa drug cartel.

He was detained along with two others on Monday morning in the town of Bacobampo, in Sonora state, the National Security Commission said in a statement.

Read more: Mexican journalists to Pena Nieto: Stop the killings

Another man, Ramon Zavala, accused of being the gunman who actually shot Breach, was killed on Friday by unidentified assailants.

Several reporters dead

Breach, a veteran crime and politics reporter for the newspapers La Jornada and Norte de Juarez, was found dead inside her car with gunshot wounds to her head on March 23 in Chihuahua. She wrote extensively on the country's drug trafficking problems and government corruption.

One of her last stories was on a war between two rival mafia bosses in the Juarez drug cartel.

Read more:Mexico records most violent year in decades

At least 10 journalists have been killed this year in the country, and more than 100 have lost their lives since 2000.

After Syria, Mexico is the world's most dangerous country for journalists, according to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) watchdog.

mm/jm (AFP, AP)