Mexico Under Siege

10 MAYORS, OTHER MEXICO OFFICIALS DETAINED

The Sweep Targets Local Officials in the State of Michoacan, Home to
LA Familia, a Fast-Growing Group of Drug Traffickers.

Mexican security forces swept into President Felipe Calderon's home
state of Michoacan on Tuesday and arrested a total of 27 mayors and
other government officials, the largest operation to target
politicians in Mexico's bloody drug war.

The officials, including 10 mayors, are being investigated for alleged
ties to drug traffickers and other organized crime syndicates that in
effect control large sections of Michoacan, the federal attorney
general's office said.

Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy, in a brief, curt appearance before
reporters, confirmed the arrests and said he had not been notified
ahead of time.

Those detained include a key advisor to Godoy, a judge and several top
regional public security officials, the attorney general's office
said. Most were taken to Mexico City for questioning after being
rounded up during the morning from their homes, offices and city halls.

Julio Cesar Godoy, the governor's brother and a congressional
candidate, was questioned Tuesday by the army as part of the operation
but was not arrested, the brother told a Michoacan newspaper.

Although Mexican authorities have frequently arrested corrupt security
agents in drug-related cases, this is the first time they have gone
after such a large number of elected officials. The sweep was
significant because it represents an effort to hit the political cover
that the traffickers enjoy, though it may not make much of a dent in
the smuggling network, analysts said.

Michoacan is the base for a fast-growing, extremely violent
drug-trafficking organization known as La Familia. The group, which in
the last year has expanded its operations into three other Mexican
states, is considered especially adept at infiltrating local
governments by buying or scaring off mayors or members of city
councils and police departments.

"Everything is so corrupt here, from top to bottom, the [federal]
government had to show it was doing something," Reginaldo Sandoval,
president of the state branch of the small Labor Party, said in a
telephone interview from Morelia, the capital of Michoacan.

At least 83 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities are mixed up at some
level with narcos, a Mexican intelligence source told The Times this
month. The source, not authorized to talk to the press, spoke on
condition of anonymity.

Dozens of mayors and other local officials have been killed or
kidnapped as La Familia, with chilling, disciplined efficiency, has
extended its reach. Calderon chose his native Michoacan to launch an
army-led offensive against drug gangs shortly after taking office in
December of 2006. The drug war-related death toll has since climbed by
more than 11,000 people nationwide.

La Familia has been doing battle with the so-called Gulf cartel, which
moved into Michoacan a few years ago in what was initially a strategic
partnership. The arrangement ruptured last year, with the two groups
struggling over control of land to produce drugs and over transport
routes, including Michoacan's valued Lazaro Cardenas seaport.

La Familia specializes in marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine. In
the last year it has set up shop in 20 to 30 cities and towns across
the United States, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said
Tuesday. Like many Mexican states where traffickers act with impunity,
Michoacan suffers from rampant corruption, residents say. Several of
the detained mayors are from the so-called Tierra Caliente (Hot Land)
section of southwest Michoacan, a rugged, virtually lawless area
dotted with meth labs. One person under arrest is the mayor of
Uruapan, the city where traffickers in 2006 notoriously tossed five
human heads onto a dance floor, an early signal of how grisly the drug
war would become.

Six of the detained mayors are with the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years; two each
represent Godoy's leftist Democratic Revolution Party and Calderon's
rightist National Action Party.

"We will be watching to be sure these detentions are processed
correctly and . . . [then] we can conclude whether this is really an
attack on crime or part of a partisan political campaign," PRI Sen.
Manlio Fabio Beltrones, who once had to fight off similar accusations,
said in Mexico City. "I trust it is the former."

Mexico votes in July in national elections to choose a new Chamber of
Deputies, the 500-member lower house of Congress, and in six states
for governors. One of Gov. Godoy's top aides, Citlalli Fernandez, who
is also the former public safety chief for Michoacan, and Mario
Bautista, director of the state's police academy, were among those
arrested.

It was not clear whether more arrests would follow.

"It is important, but it won't have an impact on the amount of drugs
going to the United States," said Alberto Islas, a Mexico City
security analyst who has advised the Calderon government. "At the end
of the day, the mayors and politicians are just another instrument in
the cartels' business."

In another development, suspected drug hit men kidnapped and killed a
Mexican journalist who covered crime for the Milenio television and
newspaper chain. Eliseo Barron, snatched from his home Monday night by
masked gunmen, was the second journalist in Durango state killed this
month. His body was found Tuesday in an irrigation ditch with signs he
had been tortured and shot, authorities said.

Durango is part of Mexico's Golden Triangle, a region of trafficking
where some people believe the country's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman, is hiding.