The ex-head of a Mexican anti-organized crime unit, arrested as part of "Operation Clean-up," took some 450,000 dollars from a drug cartel, the attorney general's office said Friday.
Noe Ramirez, the onetime chief of the Special Organized Crime Investigation Division (SIEDO), was the latest in a number of senior officials arrested in recent weeks.
Ramirez, who resigned in July 2008, was turned in by a protected witness and prosecutors deemed there was sufficient reason to detain him, according to the office of Attorney General Eduardo Medina.
The former police chief had "a meeting with a member of the Pacific cartel, which provided him 450,000 dollars" in exchange for information on current investigations against the criminal organization, Medina told a press conference.
Ramirez and a cartel representative met twice in Mexico City, after agreeing that "monthly payments" would be provided, said Medina, without specifying how long the arrangement lasted.
The attorney general's office launched "Operation Clean-up" in July against government officials apparently supplying information to the cartels of the Beltran Leyva brothers.
Four SIEDO members, including its intelligence chief, have been arrested since the operation got underway, and 35 other members have been sacked, the attorney general's office said.
The head of Mexico's Interpol office had also been arrested on suspicion he had contacts with the country's major drug cartels.
Investigators said the drug cartels were paying some suspect police officers between 150,000 and 450,000 dollars a month for information and protection.
