The police chief of a tiny town in central Mexico committed suicide Friday as troops prepared to arrest him as part of anticorruption raids that also detained several other top police commanders and mayors in nearby towns.
The large, nearly simultaneous raids, known as “Operation Swarm,” occurred in two rural villages in the State of Mexico, west of Mexico City, as well as two populous neighborhoods on the outskirts of the country’s capital.
According to the federal Public Safety Department, the seven arrested officials were “linked to criminal groups” and charged with “crimes like extortion, kidnapping, and homicide.” It was unclear whether formal charges had been filed against them yet.
According to state prosecutors, the police head of one of the outlying towns, Texcaltitlan, committed suicide with his own firearm as marines, National Guard, and soldiers moved in to arrest him on unclear accusations.
Troops also arrested the mayor of Amanalco, a nearby town, on “various charges,” as well as the police chief and another local official. They also arrested the police chief of Tejupilco, located further south.
The notorious La Familia Michoacana cartel has long dominated the territory surrounding those towns, dealing in drugs, abduction, and extortion.
While some of the raids targeted rural regions, officials also detained the assistant police chief of Naucalpan, a large neighborhood of 775,000 people on the northwest outskirts of Mexico City.
They later announced the arrest of a prominent police chief in Ixtapaluca, a suburb east of Mexico City with a population of around 370,000 people.
The police chief’s suicide comes just days after another police official in Mexico was charged with a crime. Last week, a former prosecutor and local police officer was detained in connection with the brutal decapitation of a mayor in southern Mexico. Officials claimed Germán Reyes was detained on homicide charges for killing Alejandro Arcos just a week after taking office as mayor of Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Gangs and drug cartels have historically infiltrated, coerced, or bribed local authorities to work for them, frequently offering a portion of the municipal budget or using local police forces to warn or protect them from federal raids. Sometimes police officers profit from the drug trade on their own.
Speaking out against cartel corruption and extortion can have fatal implications.
In July, the chairman of a Mexican business chambers’ federation in Tamaulipas state, across the border from Texas, was assassinated hours after giving television appearances complaining about drug cartel extortion in his state. Just weeks prior, a Mexican fisheries industry head who warned about drug cartel extortion and illicit fishing was assassinated in Baja California, the country’s northern border state.
Last December, cartel commanders went on a killing spree to track down corrupt officers who reportedly stole a narcotics shipment in Tijuana.