Mexico says mayor linked to deadly attack on students

Officials said Wednesday that a drug gang implicated in the disappearance of 43 students essentially ran the town, paying Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca hundreds of thousands of dollars a month out of its profits from making opium paste. On Sept. 26, Abarca ordered municipal police to detain protesting students, who were then turned over to the drug gang. Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said Abarca ordered police to detain students who hijacked four buses because he thought they were going to try to disrupt a speech by his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda.

They [Guerreros Unidos] stockpiled the opium paste; they sell it to other criminal organizations.

An official who wished to be anonymous

Abarca, his wife and the Iguala police chief are all fugitives. A total of 52 people, including police officers, Iguala officials and gang members, have been arrested in the case. Guerreros Unidos had sufficient money to bribe the mayor and local police force because they have increasingly turned to the lucrative practice of growing opium poppies and sending opium paste to be refined for heroin destined for the U.S. market, another federal official said Wednesday.

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