MEN DRESSED AS POLICE FREE MEXICAN INMATES

MEXICO CITY -- Armed men dressed as Mexican federal police officers
entered a heavily guarded prison in the northern state of Zacatecas
early Saturday morning and freed more than 50 inmates, many of whom
were believed to be drug traffickers allied with the powerful Gulf
Cartel, the authorities said.

The huge jailbreak, which took place about 5 a.m., was an
embarrassment to the government of President Felipe Calderon, who has
touted the arrests of thousands of drug traffickers over the last two
years as evidence that organized crime groups were on the defensive.

The team of criminals who gained entry to the prison in Cieneguillas
showed how vulnerable Mexican institutions remain.

The men arrived in a caravan of 15 vehicles with police markings as
well as in a helicopter, according to news reports. To gain entry, the
gunmen claimed that they were carrying out an authorized prisoner transfer.

After subduing the guards, they left with 53 of the prison's 1,500
inmates, in an operation that lasted only minutes, officials said.

After they got away, police officers and soldiers swarmed the state,
closing many roads as they searched for the fugitives, El Sol de
Zacatecas, a local newspaper, reported.

Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina of Zacatecas told reporters that there were
indications that prison guards and their supervisors, who were being
held for investigation, might have been complicit in the jailbreak.

It would not have been the first time. One of Mexico's top drug lords,
Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo, escaped from a maximum security
prison in 2001 in a getaway that investigations found was possible
only with the aid of dozens of prison guards. Mr. Guzman, who was
named this year to the Forbes list of the world's billionaires, hid in
a laundry cart.

Mexican authorities are well aware of the vulnerability of their
prisons. Mr. Calderon has dramatically increased the number of top
drug traffickers extradited to the United States in recent years, to
reduce the likelihood that they will continue to run their operations
from behind bars or, worse still, find a way out.