MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's drug corruption scandals reached into the presidential guard as authorities identified an officer who served in the unit as a possible spy for the country's violent drug cartels. An official of the federal prosecutor's office identified Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez on Saturday as an army major who was assigned to a unit of the presidential guard.
Prosecutors announced on Friday that Gonzalez Rodriguez had been placed under hour arrest for 40 days while he is investigated. The prosecution official said there are allegations that the officer passed information to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in exchange for payments of as much as $100,000.
The prosecutor's office could not confirm what type of information the major purportedly passed to drug traffickers. But an official of President Felipe Calderon's office said that Gonzalez Rodriguez wasn't part of the elite section of the guard that takes care of Calderon's personal security or logistics. The official stressed that Gonzalez Rodriguez never had access to any information about Calderon's activities. |