Mexico’s police chief commits suicide when soldiers try to arrest him as part of a corruption investigation

MEXICO CITY – The police chief of a small town in central Mexico took his own life Friday as the military closed in to arrest him in anti-corruption raids that also detained several other top police commanders and the mayor of other cities.

The massive, near-simultaneous raids, which federal officials dubbed “Operation Swarm,” took place in two rural towns in Mexico state west of Mexico City, as well as two populated suburbs on the outskirts of the nation’s capital.

The federal Department of Public Security said the seven arrested officials “were linked to criminal groups.” and were accused of “crimes such as extortion, kidnapping and murder”. It is unclear whether formal charges have been brought against them yet.

State prosecutors said the police chief in one rural town, Texcaltitlan, committed suicide with his own gun as Marines, National Guard and soldiers tried to arrest him on unspecified charges.

Soldiers also arrested the mayor of the nearby town of Amanalco on “various charges” and detained the police chief and another local official. They also arrested the police chief of the town of Tejupilco, further south.

The areas around these cities have long been dominated by the brutal La Familia Michoacana gang, which deals in drugs, kidnapping and extortion.

While some of the raids targeted rural areas, authorities also detained the deputy police chief in Naucalpan, a sprawling suburb of 775,000 people on the northwestern edge of Mexico City.

They later announced the arrest of the top police chief in the suburb of Ixtapaluca, east of Mexico City, which has a population of about 370,000.

Drug gangs and cartels have long infiltrated, intimidated, or bribed local officials to work for them, often going so far as to cut municipal budgets or use local police to warn or protect against federal raids. Sometimes police officers simply profit from drug trafficking.