MEXICO ARREST EIGHT POLICEMEN ON DRUG, KIDNAPPING CHARGES

MEXICO CITY -- Federal prosecutors arrested a total of eight policemen, one
former prosecutor and three men who posed as police on a variety of drug and
kidnapping charges, the Attorney General's Office reported Friday.

The former prosecutor, who is charged with stealing 26.4 pounds (12
kilograms) of cocaine from a police evidence locker in 1996, was arrested
Thursday in the southern state of Chiapas, near where the theft allegedly
occurred.

In a separate action, eight special anti-drug agents were charged Friday
with kidnapping, abuse of authority and organized criminal activity. The
eight, agents of Mexico's premier anti-drug agency, were arrested Tuesday.

The agents, and the three men who posed as officers, used their badges to
kidnap three people in Mexico City -- two of them drug suspects -- and
demand ransom for their release.

Mexico City police caught some of the federal agents when they picked up the
ransom. The alleged kindapper-cops began a fist fight with the local police,
and one ran back to his agency's headquarters to take refuge while others
escaped, gathered up the hostages and quickly filed drug charges against them.

Finally, the Attorney General's Office reported that two former state police
agents in the southern state of Morelos were convicted of kidnapping and
sentenced to 24 years in prison.