Politics, Business & Culture in the Americas

Two Mexican Mayors Arrested



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The mayors of the Mexican cities of Apatzingan and Tacámbaro, in the state of Michoacán, were arrested last night by the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado de Michoacán (Attorney General of the State of Michoacán—PGJE ) on suspicion of extortion and embezzlement, respectively.  

Uriel Chávez, the mayor of Apatzingan and a member of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI), is accused of pressuring city council members to pay $1,500 out of their salaries to the Knights Templar cartel, which has a strong presence in the city. The prosecutors said they received a number of complaints by council members who allege that in January of 2012, Chávez took them to a rural area where armed men demanded money for weapons. Chávez denies the claims.

Meanwhile, Noé Aburto Inclán, mayor of Tacámbaro and a member of the Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party—PAN), was also arrested last night for reportedly embezzling money from city coffers.

Michoacán has become a stronghold for the Knights Templar cartel. Last year, a number of civilians began organizing themselves into fuerzas autodefensas (self-defense forces) to combat the cartel’s infleucne. The Mexican government initially tried to integrate the groups into formalized units called the Rural Defense Corps under control of the military. But few of the self-defense forces obliged, causing the interior minister to set a May 10 deadline for autofedensas to register their guns and join the Corps or face arrest.

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