Federal Police

Mexican authorities Wednesday announced they had arrested the new leader of the drug gang formerly run by suspected kingpin Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal. The arrest late Tuesday of Carlos Montemayor marked a fresh blow against the remnants of the once-formidable Beltran Leyva gang, battered by arrests, deaths and vicious internal fighting. Mexican federal police said Montemayor took over the faction once led by Valdez, a U.S. citizen arrested in August. The in-fighting has stoked months of killings and beheadings across the states of Morelos and Guerrero, home to the resort city of Acapulco.

Residents in Chiapas state attacked 200 federal police officers who were launching an offensive to arrest a group of alleged paramilitaries charged with the 1997 massacre of 45 peasants, forcing the troops to flee. Two officers and three Indian residents suffered minor injuries in the melee in Los Chorros, a small village near Acteal where the massacre occurred. The region of southern Mexico has seen numerous clashes between leftist Zapatista rebels and pro-government armed bands.

Reporting from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico -- The mayor had good news: A notorious thug from one of the drug cartels had been found killed. Hector "El Negro" Saldana would no longer menace the people of San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. Trouble was, Saldana's body hadn't yet been discovered when Mayor Mauricio Fernandez made the announcement with a flourish at his swearing-in ceremony in October. How did Fernandez know about Saldana's demise hours before investigators found the body stuffed in a car hundreds of miles away in Mexico City?

Federal police surrounded a university packed with leftist protesters here Thursday, clearing barricades and firing tear gas as the activists showered them with gasoline bombs. At least 20 protesters, 10 officers and three news photographers were injured. About 200 police officers in body armor and carrying riot shields advanced to the gates of Benito Juarez Autonomous University and fought the protesters for more than six hours before retreating.

Federal police will investigate death threats that prompted Jewish author Isidoro Blastain to leave the country, according to Interior Secretary Facundo Suarez Lastra. Detectives would determine whether "a group of kooks" or a potentially dangerous organization telephoned threats to Blastain, Lastra said in an interview Monday with Radio Continental of Buenos Aires.

Eleven policemen have been shot to death near Mexico City in a three-day string of drug gang attacks, prosecutors said. Mexico state prosecutor Alberto Bazbaz said 10 suspects believed linked to drug gangs have been arrested in the killings, which mainly occurred on highways and at police checkpoints. Meanwhile, federal police said they had arrested the Gulf drug cartel's leader for the border city of Reynosa, Antonio Galarza, in the northern city of Monterrey on suspicion of weapons violations and money laundering.

MEXICO CITY - At least 35 alleged members of a “self-defense” vigilante group in southern Mexico were reportedly arrested by the military Thursday, underscoring the tension between government authorities and such groups, which have sprouted up in numerous states in recent months. The members were arrested in the town of Buenavista Tomatlan, in the state of Michoacan, roughly between Mexico City and the Pacific port of Manzanillo, according to reports in the newspapers El Universal and Reforma . [links in Spanish.]

Corrupt Mexican police, military and immigration officers have helped the notorious Tijuana narcotics cartel ship and unload drugs, assassinate fellow law enforcement officers and avoid capture, new documents say. Most chilling of all, witnesses who dare to testify against the cartel's notorious hit men have been betrayed by police, according to statements given to U.S. and Mexican prosecutors. The allegations, made by two confessed henchmen of the cartel, were filed in U.S. courts.

Heavily armed federal police swarmed an Amazon town Saturday, seizing more than 500 truckloads of illegally cut hardwood that were previously confiscated but abandoned when rioting residents and loggers drove out environmental authorities. About 450 officers retook the town of Tailandia, patrolling on horseback and in pickup trucks and standing guard outside sawmills.