FEDERAL AUTHORITIES ARREST TIJUANA POLICE COMMANDER

TIJUANA, Mexico - Investigators have arrested a Tijuana police
commander accused of participating in killings and kidnappings
ordered by a feared and powerful drug smuggling cartel based here,
federal authorities said Sunday.

Heberto Yoc, 30, deputy director of an elite municipal police team
assigned to the city's central district, was detained during a
traffic stop Thursday in the Playas de Rosarito area.

At the time of the arrest, Yoc was driving a Ford Lobo pickup without
license plates that had been stolen. Inside, police found guns and a
bullet proof vest with the insignia of the Federal Agency of
Investigation, the Mexican equivalent of the FBI.

He was transferred to Mexico City for questioning on Saturday,
according to a spokesman for the federal attorney general's office.

Investigators believe he may have taken bribes from the Tijuana-based
Arellano Felix cocaine and marijuana smuggling syndicate to
orchestrate kidnappings and killings.

He has been linked by other detained drug suspects to at least five
homicides and several high-profile abductions - including the
drug-related kidnapping of six people in Tijuana in Febuary, investigators say.