Police Chief And 91 Officers Detained In Mexico
MEXICO CITY (AFP)--A police chief and 91 officers were detained in a sweep on
a city in central Mexico suspected of sheltering one of the country's most
violent drug gangs, federal police said Thursday.
The police chief of Pachuca, capital of Hidalgo state, and the police officers
were suspected of offering protection to the Zetas, the armed wing of the
powerful Gulf drug cartel, federal police intelligence coordinator Luis Cardenas
told reporters.
The Zetas carried out kidnappings and extortion in liaison with local police
around Pachuca, some 120 kilometers from Mexico City, Cardenas said.
The original Zetas were elite Mexican Special Forces soldiers trained to find
and detain drug lords. A group of deserters formed the group when they instead
went to work for the drug lords in the late 1990s.
In recent weeks, a dozen army soldiers and police officers have been arrested
in at least four Mexican districts for allegedly harboring organized crime,
especially drug trafficking.
More than 10,000 people have died in suspected drug violence since President
Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide military crackdown on the nation's
powerful cartels two and a half years ago.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
06-25-092324ET
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