Mexican Cops Filmed Doing Drug Cartel's Dirty Work

Mexicans are well aware that some cops have long collaborated with drug cartels, but the country has been shocked by some rare video evidence of corruption. A hotel's surveillance cameras captured five heavily armed policemen entering a hotel and marching out with three handcuffed men in their underwear, reports AP. The three were found hours later, asphyxiated and beaten to death. Civilian gunmen, apparently drug cartel members, can be seen giving the police orders.

The kidnapping and murder in Jalisco state happened in January, but the police officers involved were not detained until soldiers and state police raided their stationhouse last week, and they still have not been charged with any crime. The video is "cause for despair," says an expert on security and drug trafficking at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. "It gives rise to the feeling that this is not going to be solved in the short term." Elsewhere in Mexico, a newspaper reporter was kidnapped and murdered in Veracruz state. The Zetas cartel left a note next to the body of the man, who is the fifth journalist to be killed in the state so far this year. (More Mexico stories.)