Mexican federal police detain alleged members of powerful drug cartel

By: LISA J. ADAMS - Associated Press | Friday, September 7, 2007 10:55 PM PDT ∞

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities on Friday announced the arrest of several alleged members of a powerful drug cartel who apparently also trafficked undocumented migrants across the U.S. border.

Among those detained is Mario or Alejandro Alberto Ponce Salazar, a top leader of the Gulf cartel in the southeastern state of Tabasco, the national Public Safety Department said in a news release.

The release did not say when the four were arrested. A department spokeswoman who was not authorized to give her name said the arrests occurred Friday.

The daily newspaper El Universal reported on its Web site that the arrests took place on Wednesday, however, and that the suspects were transferred to Mexico City on Friday. The Mexican government news agency, Notimex, reported that they were being held Thursday night in Tabasco's capital, Villahermosa.

All four suspects are alleged Zetas, former military men-turned hit men for the cartel, the department said. At the time of their arrest, they were holding 25 undocumented Central Americans who presumably were headed to the United States, authorities said.

Shortly after their arrest, authorities detained a second group of four men traveling with an unidentified number of undocumented Brazilian nationals. One of them identified Ponce Salazar as the leader of a band of traffickers that was to bring them to the U.S. border.

Ponce Salazar allegedly also was involved in an attempt on the life of the public safety director in Ciudad del Carmen, a city in the Gulf state of Campeche, and is allegedly connected to the disappearance of a federal police officer from the northern state of Nuevo Leon in February, the news release said.

The Gulf Cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful and brutal trafficking gangs and is believed responsible for much of the bloodshed along the Mexican border with Texas.

U.S. investigators say that at its height, the Gulf cartel had cells in Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and other U.S. cities and moved tons of cocaine per month into the United States.

The reputed kingpin of the Gulf cartel, Osiel Cardenas, was imprisoned in 2003, and has been extradited to the United States.

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Curious wrote on Sep 8, 2007 6:47 AM:Are these the Police our tax dollars are now paying for? That's right, Bush has sent billions of our tax dollars to Mexico to fight drugs. You see the situation must be under control before the border totally opens. Of course by then we will be in a recession and it further drain on our resources when millions more of their poor arrive from Mexico putting us into a depression. Maybe then when no one can afford the cheap products from China and Mexico and they suffer job losses as a result, corporate america will realize their greed has destroyed what once was a great country.

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