MEXICO ARRESTS EX-CHIEF OF ANTIDRUG AGENCY

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's former senior antidrug official has been
arrested and accused of accepting bribes from a drug cartel, the
authorities said Friday.

Noe Ramirez Mandujano, who as the chief of Mexico's organized crime
unit was the closest equivalent to the government's drug czar, was
arrested late Thursday after questioning, said Attorney General
Eduardo Medina-Mora.

Mr. Ramirez is the highest-ranking official to come under suspicion
in a purge of the police and prosecutors for possible ties to drug
traffickers. While he led the unit, known by its Spanish initials as
the Siedo, Mr. Ramirez met twice with a member of a loose federation
known as the Pacific Cartel and took a payoff of $450,000, Mr.
Medina-Mora said.

In return, Mr. Ramirez passed along information about investigations
and actions against the cartel, Mr. Medina-Mora said. The witness who
accused Mr. Ramirez of taking the bribe told investigators that more
money had also been promised to him.

Mr. Ramirez led Mexico's organized crime unit for less than two years
before resigning in July. He was then appointed to Mexico's
delegation to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna.

The accusations against Mr. Ramirez unfolded as part of a month-old
investigation that has uncovered corruption among the senior ranks of
the antidrug forces. Officials say the Beltran Leyva drug-trafficking
organization, part of the Pacific Cartel, has bought protection with
payoffs to top officials.

In an interview last year, Mr. Ramirez, a former police official,
described how drug-trafficking organizations were able to buy off
local police forces to obtain the intelligence they needed to operate.

So far, six other high-ranking officials have been charged in the
investigation, said Mr. Medina-Mora, who was Mr. Ramirez's boss. The
current and former directors of Interpol's Mexico office have also
been arrested.

The United States has been preparing to release about $400 million in
aid for Mexico's drug war, to be spent on training and on helicopters
and other equipment.

President Felipe Calderon has won praise from the United States for
beginning a crackdown on drug trafficking shortly after he took
office two years ago. He has sent 30,000 soldiers to regions where
cartel violence had increased.

Although the government claims success in the growing number of drug
seizures and the arrest of several top traffickers, the cartel's
response to the crackdown has increased the violence.