Acapulco police are disarmed over drug gang links

MEXICAN federal troops and police put the once glamorous resort of Acapulco under military control yesterday.

They swept in to take over the city, which has a population of 800,000, and disarmed the local police force, who are accused of being in the pay of drug cartels.

Officials in Guerrero state issued arrest warrants for two top police commanders, accusing them of homicide.

The rest of the force were stripped of their guns and other equipment in advance of background checks.

The state government said it made the decision “because of suspicion that the force had probably been infiltrated by criminal groups”.

They also cited “the complete inaction of the municipal police” in fighting the drug wars which have brought carnage to Acapulco.

Acapulco was once a magnet for the stars. Frank Sinatra

Arrest warrants accused two police chiefs of homicide

and the Rat Pack were regulars, and John and Jacqueline Kennedy honeymooned there.

But the resort has been in decline as the gang wars have led to a spiralling murder rate.

It now ranks as one of the most violent cities in the world, with a murder rate of 103 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The violence has reached epidemic levels, with killings happening on the seafront and beaches as well as in the city’s back streets.

It is a battle for a lucrative trade which begins in the mountains of Guerrero, where impoverished peasants tend to fields of poppies that are processed into heroin and shipped north to the US.

Mexico has launched similar operations numerous times in recent years when a police force is suspected of being infiltrated by organised crime. But it is rare in a city the size of Acapulco. (© Daily Telegraph, London)