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Mexico police arrest 100 vigilantes in Michoacan State

28 June 2014 20:49 (UTC +04:00)

Police detained the suspects including the head of a powerful anti-crime vigilante group, Jose Manuel Mireles, in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas on Friday, the federal government commissioner said.

Mireles, a medical doctor by training, was arrested after entering a nearby town with more than 100 armed supporters, officials said.

This comes as President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government has stepped up a crackdown on the notorious Knights Templar drug cartel in the troubled western state.

In January, Pena Nieto deployed 10,000 troops to the Michoacan State in a bid to restore security after civilians began to form “self-defense” militias last year to oust the Knights Templar drug cartel.

Towns having vigilante groups argue that local police are unable to stop the cartel’s murders, kidnappings and extortion rackets. They also claim that local and state law enforcement officers are in the employ of the Knights Templar.

The turmoil in the violence-plagued state has become the biggest security challenge of the Nieto administration.

The Mexican president has pledged to get rid of gang violence that has claimed about 80,000 lives in Mexico since 2007.

Official data show that every month since Peña Nieto took office in December 2012, an additional 1,000 people died in violence linked to drug cartels.