Prosecutors charged 27 state, federal and local police in Cancun with running a drug ring or aiding in the murder of their fellow officers, busting one of Mexico's largest police-protection rackets and solving the mystery behind the killing of three federal agents in November.
The charges announced Monday illustrate how traffickers continued to infiltrate the area around the Caribbean resort, despite a crackdown following the 2001 arrest of the state's former governor on drug charges.
Most of those charged "took advantage of their position as public servants to form a criminal organization whose main function was to tolerate and allow third parties to continue drug trafficking activities," the Attorney General's Office said in a press statement.
