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Mexican authorities have arrested four police officers on suspicion of abducting three missing Italian men for a local criminal gang.
State prosecutors confirmed the news on Saturday.
A Reuters report says the three men reportedly went missing on Jan 31 after being detained by police at a gasoline station in the municipality of Tecalitlan in southern Jalisco state, the home of Mexico’s second biggest city, Guadalajara.
The Jalisco attorney general’s office said four Tecalitlan police officers, three men and a woman had been held on suspicion of carrying out the forced disappearance of the Naples natives Raffaele Russo, Antonio Russo and Vincenzo Cimmino.
Jalisco attorney general Raul Sanchez said the arrested police officers had told investigators they had been ordered to hand over the three men to local gangsters.
Authorities are still trying to locate the Italians, and investigations are continuing, he told a news conference.
It was not clear why the police had been told to abduct the men.
Jalisco is home to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful drug gangs and one notorious for infiltrating the police. Sanchez could not say whether the Italians had been handed over to members of the CJNG.