Five killed, policemen arrested in Mexico

Five including a former mayor and a municipal employee were murdered or found dead around Mexico on 31 October, while authorities detained 23 policemen in the district of Chalco south east of Mexico City, for suspected ties to the mafia, Proceso reported on 1 November. The suspected victims of organized crime included the former mayor of Miguel Alemán on Mexico's north-eastern frontier with the United States, shot to death as he  entered his house the evening of 31 October. The Municipal Secretary - likely a deputy-mayor - of Zumpango in the Estado de México state, separately died after being stabbed in the chest outside a clinic in that town; in the same state, the mayor-elect of Luvianos was "repeatedly" shot from car and badly injured as he drove on a state road. Early on 1 November, 1,400 state police and judicial agents of Estado de México participated in the arrests of 23 municipal policemen and five municipal employees of the Chalco and Valle de Chalco districts suspected of aiding criminals, Proceso reported. The suspects were held at the police stations where they worked to which they had been summoned for an inspection at four in the morning. They were taken to the prosecutor's office of the nearby district of Nezahualcóyotl.