100 Mexican police tied to drug trafficking

100 Mexican police tied to drug trafficking
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100 Mexican police tied to drug trafficking
(AFP)

17 April 2007

MONTERREY, Mexico - Mexico's army detained on Monday more than a hundred police for alleged ties to drug traffickers as authorities reported a spree of drug-related murders.

The police were arrested in 12 municipalities near Monterrey, the industrial capital of Nuevo Leon, said Omar Cervantes, Nuevo Leon state spokesman.

The police officers will be investigated to determine their involvement in several shootings around the state, Cervantes said.

Some 50 execution-style murders have taken place so far this year in the area, 18 of those police officers.

Meanwhile, officials said at least 22 people had been killed around Mexico in drug-related murders over the past 48 hours.

The bodies of five victims, two of them women, were found in an expensive car at the entrance to a residential neighbourhood, prosecutors in the resort city of Cancun said.

In Guerrero state, at least eight people were executed in 48 hours, said Erit Montufar, director of the local investigative police, who added that the bodies of two men were found in a car with gunshot wounds.

"Welcome to all those who want to ally with us. Yours truly, your friends. Ha, ha, ha," said a note with the bodies.

Three other bodies were found in a garbage dump in Taxco, Montufar said.

Other execution-style murdered bodies turned up in Tijuana, Veracruz, Sinaloa, Michoacan and in Mexico City, according to officials and press reports.

Mexico has deployed more than 20,000 soldiers and federal police to Guerrero and elsewhere in a national crackdown on drug-related violence.