Mexican Authorities Arrest 4 Federal Drug Agents in Tijuana

Mexican authorities have arrested four of their own agents suspected of working for the powerful Arellano Felix drug gang.

The Mexican federal attorney general’s office said in a statement that the four federal agents, part of an anti-drug force in Tijuana since November, were charged with organized crime.

The attorney general’s statement said charges stemmed from “the relationship they had with the Arellano Felix brothers’ criminal organization, through Ismael Higuera Guerrero.”

Higuera, believed to hold a top decision-making post in the gang, was arrested last month during a raid by soldiers and federal agents in Ensenada.

Authorities did not provide details about the officers’ alleged roles or say what evidence led to their arrests.

The respected Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that the four had been involved in the April 10 murder of three drug agents who had been working with U.S. authorities in San Diego to crack the Arellano ring.

The newspaper, citing an unnamed official, said the officers were implicated by videotape that showed their vehicle tailing a car in which the three agents crossed into Tijuana before they died. The tortured bodies of Jose Patino Moreno, Oscar Pompa Plaza and Rafael Torres Bernal were found at the foot of a ravine outside Tijuana.

But the attorney general’s statement did not mention a connection between the arrested agents and the slayings. U.S. officials said they were given no indication of any link. There have been no other breakthroughs in the slayings, which shocked the U.S. agents who worked alongside Patino.

The arrests mark the latest round in a tense showdown between the Mexican government and the violent Arellano gang, which controls drug smuggling into California. In March, soldiers in Tijuana arrested Jesus Labra Aviles, the suspected financial mastermind of the cartel. The agents were killed as they closed in on the cartel’s leaders, according to U.S. colleagues.

The arrest of Higuera in May was hailed by U.S. officials as the most serious blow to the drug gang. The United States has sought the arrests of brothers Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix. Ramon is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

In recent weeks, Mexican soldiers have set up roadblocks all over Tijuana and raided properties thought to be linked to the gang. A bungled raid this week damaged the home of a Mexican citizen serving as Sweden’s consul. The attorney general’s office apologized and promised to pay for the damage.