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MONTERREY, Mexico : The Mexican army captured a suspected drug dealer in the powerful Beltran Leyva cartel with a list of the names of 33 apparently corrupt police, military officials said Saturday.
Soldiers arrested Omar Ibarra Lozano, alias "El 34," as he travelled to a gymnasium in the northern city of Monterrey, one of several key staging points for transporting cocaine and other drugs across the border into the United States.
Ibarra was "responsible for the trade in San Pedro Garza Garcia for the Beltran Leyva (drug cartel)," an army official told AFP.
The official said authorities confiscated from the suspect's car some 5.7 kilograms (11 pounds) of marijuana, a submachine gun, two grenades and "a list with the names of 33 municipal police in San Pedro Garza Garcia," a suburb of Monterrey and one of the wealthiest municipalities in the country.
Ibarra, 25, is a former officer of an elite police unit in Nuevo Leon state who is believed to be responsible for three drug-related murders, newspaper Reforma reported on its website.
More than 10,000 have died in gangland-style violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on the country's powerful drug cartels two and a half years ago.
Cartel bribes of police are not new in Mexico, but there is mounting evidence that the drug war is creeping into the mid-term elections set for July 5.
Calderon's right-wing PAN party has directly linked the issue to its campaign, and after a crackdown last month, authorities charged seven mayors and 20 other officials for suspected links to the powerful La Familia drug cartel.
In early June, a Mexican news website posted an audio recording in which a PAN candidate from San Pedro Garza Garcia admitted that members of the Beltran Leyva cartel live in the municipality and that a pact had been reached with the cartel to maintain local security.
The politician later said his words had been taken out of context, stressing instead that he believed that the San Pedro Garza Garcia police force had been infiltrated by drug traffickers.
Fifty-four arrested agents from other localities in Nuevo Leon state have acknowledged receiving bribes from drug cartels in exchange for information about police and army movements and operations, according to state prosecutors.
In the July vote, Calderon is seeking a renewed public mandate to continue his tough US-backed campaign during the second half of his presidency.
- AFP /ls
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