MEXICAN EX-POLICE OFFICIAL ARRESTED

MEXICO CITY -- Police in Baja California state arrested a former top
police official and three other men accused of smuggling cocaine and
marijuana for Mexico's largest drug cartel, prosecutors said Saturday.

Antonio Hermenegido Carmona, the ex-chief of public safety in the
northern city of Mexicali, was captured Wednesday during police raids
of 17 homes allegedly linked to the Arellano Felix drug smuggling
organization, the attorney general's office said in a statement.

Carmona is accused of protecting drug smugglers working for the gang,
while the three other men allegedly helped move the group's cocaine
and marijuana into the United States, the statement said.

During the raids, police recovered 220 pounds of marijuana, three
rifles, a machine gun and six pistols.

Based in the border city of Tijuana, the Arellano Felix cartel all-but
collapsed in 1989 when its longtime boss, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo,
was arrested. Since then, the group has emerged from years of bloody
territorial battles with other drug syndicates to become this
country's chief narcotics smuggling organization.