Sinaloa Cartel

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that authorities had arrested more than 730 people across the country in a 21-month investigation targeting Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel and its infiltration into U.S. cities. The arrests, including 50 on Wednesday in California, Minnesota, Maryland and the nation's capital, come amid growing concern in Washington that Mexican crime organizations are out of control and threaten the stability of parts of Mexico and the safety of U.S. citizens.

Two former top officials in Mexico's Interpol offices were charged with aiding a drug cartel in exchange for money, the attorney general's office announced. Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas and Rodolfo de la Guardia Garcia, who have been under house arrest since November, were transferred to federal prison. De la Guardia allegedly accepted payments of $10,000 a month from the Sinaloa cartel to place officers sympathetic to the cartel in key positions. Gutierrez Vargas is accused of giving the cartel confidential information in exchange for unspecified payments.

Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they arrested a leading drug figure known as El Rey after a shootout in Mexico City early this week. Jesus Zambada Garcia, the brother of a suspected drug kingpin in the western state of Sinaloa, was among 16 people captured Monday, Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said. The attorney general said Zambada, whose nickname means "the king," commanded one of four branches of the so-called Sinaloa cartel, leading its operations in central Mexico.

At least 21 people, including a 12-year-old girl and other ordinary citizens, have been killed by warring drug gangs since Thursday in the western state of Sinaloa, in one of the worst spasms of violence in memory in a region long conditioned to narcotics-related savagery. The wave of deadly mayhem began with the audacious daytime shooting of a dozen people in the capital, Culiacan, and continued during the weekend and into Monday.

The Mexican military said Sunday that it had detained a leader of a drug cartel, the first major arrest since President Felipe Calderon sent more than 6,000 troops to a western state terrorized by drug gangs. Elias Valencia, a suspected head of the Valencia cartel, was arrested with four other people Friday at a mountain ranch near the town of Aguililla in Michoacan state, said Gen. Cornelio Casio, one of the officials in charge of the offensive.

Death surprised Julio Carlos Lopez Soto near the beach as he stepped out of the swanky La Mansion steakhouse, where the meat is grilled on tabletops overlooking the Pacific. Death came to police officer Raymundo Leyva in the hills that rise above Acapulco Bay, where the working people of this resort city live. He was shot 11 times.