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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2008 
Mexico's Former Top Anti-Organized Crime Official Says Suspects Were Plotting Against Him
 Associated Press
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| | Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos | | |
Mexico City - A top Mexican crime fighter said this week that he had been targeted for assassination by three men captured in Mexico City with assault rifles and grenade launchers.
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had been Mexico's top drug prosecutor before taking on his current post overseeing the extradition of traffickers, said investigators are looking into whether the men are linked to alleged Sinaloa drug cartel chief Joaquin Guzman, who escaped in a laundry cart from a maximum-security prison in 2001 after bribing guards.
Santiago Vasconcelos told Radio Formula the three suspects were going to assassinate him on Jan. 17, when he was driving home, but failed when they were detained that same day by Mexico City police.
"They were betting on delivering a spectacular blow precisely to threaten society," he said.
Earlier Thursday, federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia told a press conference that investigators had evidence the three men were connected to a possible plot to kill a public official. He did not elaborate.
Authorities have not released the identities of the three men in custody. They were detained in a vacant lot in southern Mexico City armed with two AK-47 assault rifles and three anti-tank-grenade launchers, Garcia said.
On Monday, special army forces captured Alfredo Beltran Leyva, one of five brothers believed to be top lieutenants of the Sinaloa cartel, along with three alleged hit men in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, for which the cartel is named.
Garcia said various organized crime syndicates are using a strategy of amping up their firepower and increasing levels of violence to threaten the government into backing down from its anti-drug-trafficking operations.
President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of soldiers into states throughout Mexico to combat drug gangs battling for territory and for control over corrupt local police forces. |
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