| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2009 
Mexico Police Took Bribes from Drug Cartels: Prosecutor
 Agence France-Presse
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June 15, 2009
| | Mexican army soldiers stand guard at the entrance of the Police Academy in Nuevo Leon state, Northern Mexico in 2007. (AFP/Alejandro Acosta) | |
Monterrey, Mexico - More than 50 policemen in northern Mexico have admitted taking bribes to tip off drug cartels, officials said Saturday as the region's wave of drug-fueled violence showed no sign of abating.
A group of 54 officers - out of the 87 police arrested in the state in early June - admitted to taking bribes in exchange for tips on the authorities fighting the cartels, said the Nuevo Leon state prosecutor.
Three of the arrested officers even confessed to abducting Mexican soldiers on behalf of the region's violent "Los Zetas" gang, said attorney Luis Carlos Trevino.
The announcement came as 16 bodies turned up from drug-related killings in the last 24 hours alone in the northern state of Chihuahua.
Most of the deaths were execution-style shots to the head, police said, in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.
Also in Chihuahua, which saw over 2,400 murders in 2008, police arrested a 25-strong contingent of trained hitmen from the Sinaloa cartel, a judicial source told AFP.
Drug-related violence has been blamed for the deaths of some 7,700 people across the country since the start of last year, amid a crackdown on drug cartels by President Felipe Calderon, which includes the deployment of more than 36,000 security forces across the country.
Killings appear to be on the rise again less than one month before midterm elections. |
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