POLICE CHIEF AND 40 POLICE OFFICERS HELD IN MEXICAN DRUG STING

The chief of police in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and about 40
other officers have been arrested for drug-related corruption. They were
taken into custody at a police academy as the result of an elaborate sting
operation.

About 200 police officers from the border state of Baja California were
called to the academy in Tecate on Wednesday, supposedly for weapons
inspection and training. As they were settling down to their lessons,
soldiers and federal police officers rushed into the classrooms and marched
everybody outside. About 40 people were arrested and flown to Mexico City.

Among those reported held is Carlos Otal, head of the municipal police in
Tijuana, the base of the drug gang controlled by the Arellano Felix family.

The gang has been is disarray since its main leader, Benjamin Arellano
Felix, was arrested last month and his brother Ramon was killed in a gun
battle with the police in February.

Despite its reputation as a particularly bloody gang which killed with
abandon to protect its empire, it built up a network of corrupt police
officers to protect the operations that made it one of the main providers
of cocaine to the North American market.

The involvement of the police in drug organisations is common throughout
Mexico. Late last year the police in Sinaloa state acted as guards at the
marriage of the daughter of a Juarez cartel leader.

An official of the US drug enforcement administration (DEA) said recently
that the US believed the police agent who killed Ramon Arellano Felix was
probably in the pay of a rival gang headed by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
Since the demise of the brothers, El Mayo has moved to the top of the list
of Mexico's most wanted traffickers.

As well as keeping up the assault on drug trafficking, the rounding up of
allegedly corrupt police officers seemed designed to impress senior law
enforcement officers who are in Mexico City this week for an Interpol
conference.

A few days previously a report by a UN investigator lambasted the Mexican
authorities for corruption, despite attempts at reform.

Just across the border an elaborate tunnel which the US authorities say was
used by associates of the Arellano Felix gang to smuggle marijuana and
cocaine into the US has been dismantled.

DEA agents found the tunnel on February 27 while searching a house in
Tierra del Sol, about 60 miles east of San Diego.

They found 225kg (495lbs) of marijuana at the American end of the 300-metre
tunnel, which had its own electric lighting and ventilation system. The
other end was 60 metres inside Mexico, under a fireplace in a ranch house.
Concrete has been poured into the American end.

DEA agents have long complained about links between the police and drugs
traffickers in Mexican border areas. But since the election of President
Vicente Fox, who enjoys close relations with George Bush, there has been
increased cooperation between officers on the two sides of the border.

Nevertheless, despite an increase in border controls since September 11,
drugs prices in the US have remained largely static, indicating that the
traffickers are using different smuggling techniques.

They are reported to be sending clothes which have been soaked in a cocaine
solution to the US in suitcases.

Once in the US, the shirts and sweaters are soaked in water and the
solution is returned to powder form.