| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2009 
Army Clashes with Michoacan Criminals
 Associated Press/The News
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| | Marines guard the detention center where a group of top officials from Mexico's state of Michoacan are being held after being detained for alleged ties to 'La Familia' drug cartel in Mexico City, Sunday, May 31, 2009. Soldiers and federal agents fanned out Tuesday across Michoacan, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon's native state, to detain 10 mayors and 18 other local officials. (AP/Marco Ugarte) | | |
The Army clashed with alleged criminals in Michoacán on Sunday, an apparent repercussion of the beefed up security following the arrest of 28 civil servants in the central-western state last week.
The Defense Secretariat, or Sedena, said that a patrol in Ecuandureo, a Michoacán municipality, was met with gunfire when approaching a house. Sedena did not specify whether arrests were made or whether injuries were incurred.
The clash was one of several that has occurred in Michoacán since 28 civil servants were rounded up last week for allegedly being linked to the local organized crime gang La Familia.
The Attorney General's Office, or PGR, said over the weekend that La Familia was now one of the most dangerous organizations in the country. It had warned last year that the group was rapidly growing; indeed, it had already pledged to expand nationwide through warnings left with dead bodies.
The country's once-powerful cartels are currently at war with themselves, and authorities say that the president's Army-backed crackdown on organized crime has helped weaken the groups further.
Attorney General Eduardo MediníMora said late last week that while Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán remains an emblematic figure in the Sinaloa cartel, he is not as involved in day-to-day drug trafficking.
Guzmán lost his leadership role while serving a 20-year sentence at a Jalisco prison, MediníMora said. Guzmán escaped in 2001 and has been on the run ever since.
Mexico is offering $2 million and the United States $5 million for information leading to Guzmán's arrest.
This past Friday, soldiers arrested a lieutenant of the Sinaloa drug cartel who received direct orders from Guzmán, said Gen. Luis Arturo Oliver, the Defense Secretariat's deputy chief of operations.
Oliver said Roberto Beltrán Burgos was in charge of conveying Guzmán's orders to other cartel members and coordinating a group of 14 lawyers working for the crime syndicate.
Beltrán Burgos was arrested in Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa, after soldiers received complaints of armed men in a residential area.
Meanwhile, a judge has ordered the 10 mayors and 20 other top officials from Michoacán held for 40 days pending an investigation of their alleged ties to La Familia drug cartel.
This past Wednesday, Michoacán state's top prosecutor, Miguel García, and his deputy had also resigned and offered to cooperate with the probe. They were also detained. García's defense lawyer, Alejandro Tavera, said the arrests are a ploy by the federal government to discredit opposition candidates ahead of the July 5 midterms.
Federal prosecutors have until July 7 to file charges or release those detained.
"This is a political matter that they now want to make appear as a judicial matter," Tavera said in an impromptu news conference outside the offices where the officials are being detained.
While two of the targeted mayors belong to President Felipe Calderón's National étion Party, or PAN, and a third is from a coalition including it, the rest are from opposition parties, most from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Calderón's party has suggested in the past that some PRI members were soft on drug trafficking, which the party vehemently denies.
Tavera said federal prosecutors are basing their accusations on a piece of paper that lists the officials and the amounts of money they were allegedly paid by the cartel for protection. |
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