WORLD : Mexico Seizes Ex-Interpol Agent
The former head of the Mexican branch of Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, was arrested on drug charges and illegally possessing firearms, the attorney general’s office said today.
Miguel Aldana Ibarra also is among five people indicted Feb. 1 by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of participating in the 1985 torture murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a Mexican pilot in Mexico.
Aldana was picked up Wednesday afternoon by federal agents at a restaurant in the southside of Mexico City, said Arturo Antelmo, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
Agents later raided Aldana’s house in Cuernavaca, 51 miles southeast of Mexico City, and confiscated 2.2 pounds of pure cocaine, six automatic rifles and several rounds of ammunition.
Antelmo said that Aldana was picked up on a warrant for his involvement in a huge operation to smuggle marijuana to the United States five years ago and that his possible extradition to the United States was not being immediately considered by Mexican authorities.
DEA agent Enrique Camarena and his pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, were killed after the agent led a series of raids on marijuana plantations allegedly operated by Rafael Caro Quintero, who ran the drug ring.
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