Mexican Federal Agents Rescue Student Kidnapped by Local Cops

The Federal Police rescued a 23-year-old student kidnapped by three municipal police officers in San Luis Potosi, a city in central Mexico, the Public Safety Secretariat said.

A citizen tipped off federal authorities that three individuals wearing uniforms from the police department in San Luis Potosi, the capital of the like-named state, kidnapped a young man and drove him away in a private vehicle.

The Federal Police launched a search and arrested the three suspects last Wednesday as they were driving the student on the highway to Ojuelos, a city in neighboring Jalisco state, the secretariat said.

The three suspects, identified as Fredy Navidad Zuñiga, 25, Luis Guadalupe Castillo Lopez, 22, and Claudia del Carmen Castillo Vazquez, 24, all from San Luis Potosi, “were wearing municipal police tactical uniforms” at the time of their arrest, the secretariat said.

The suspects were carrying five cell phones, a computer, a number of identification cards and several debit cards.

The three municipal police officers were handed over to federal prosecutors, who charged them with kidnapping and participating in organized crime.

President Felipe Calderon has repeatedly said that Mexico’s 32 states must clean up local police departments and tighten hiring standards to fight corruption and crime.

The federal government has proposed that states eliminate their municipal departments and replace them with unified state police forces.

Mexico has more than 2,000 different police departments, and 1,060 of the departments, or more than half, have 20 or fewer officers, the Public Safety Secretariat said.

Source: The Associated Press