Pubdate: Sat, 22 Nov 2008
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A6
Copyright: 2008 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Elisabeth Malkin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

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. 
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