Mexico detained almost 600 officials since 2006
MEXICO CITY (AFP) â?? Mexico has detained 573 officials for suspected links to organized crime since President Felipe Calderon came to power in December 2006, the attorney general said Friday.
The government has arrested "573 public servants from the three levels of government" for suspected collaboration with criminal organizations, mainly drug cartels, Eduardo Medina Mora told a news conference.
More than half of those detained were municipal officials, with 155 at state level and 45 federal officials, the attorney general said, without indicating how many had been convicted.
Mexican security forces on Tuesday detained 29 officials, including 10 mayors and a judge, in a massive operation against organized crime in the western Michoacan state, two months ahead of mid-term elections.
Security forces carried out the raids across the state where Calderon first launched a military crackdown on drug traffickers more than two years ago.
A judge on Friday ordered provisional detention for 30 suspects, after another official voluntarily came forward in the case, the attorney general's office said.
The informal detention -- which under Mexican law allows authorities to gather proof in a case -- would be for 40 days.
Mexican police on Friday detained five suspected drug traffickers from the powerful La Familia drug cartel -- the gang connected to the arrests.
Federal police rounded up the suspects in a restaurant in southern Guerrero state, said a statement from the public security ministry.
La Familia is based in Michoacan, which has seen some of Mexico's worst drug violence, and also operates in neighboring Guerrero as well as central, southern and western Mexico, according to the ministry.
The cartel "is above all permeating local police," Rodolfo Cruz Lopez, a police coordinator, said Friday.
"It is also starting to permeate higher levels."
The attorney general said Friday that some of those detained in this week's sweep also had links to the Gulf cartel, based in eastern Mexico.
More than 7,300 people have died since 2008 in Mexico in suspected drug violence amid a government crackdown involving more than 36,000 troops deployed across the country.
Fri May 29, 7:12 pm ET
Mexico detained almost 600 officials since 2006
