3 COPS KILLED IN REGION PLAGUED BY OIL THEFT

Armed assailants killed three police officers Wednesday in a region of eastern Mexico plagued by thefts of fuel from oil pipelines, authorities said. Police in the municipality of Tezonapa in Veracruz state said the local officers were hit by gunfire while riding in a patrol vehicle. They were in an area where three days earlier authorities mounted an operation targeting “huachicoleros,” or thieves who steal fuel by drilling into pipelines run by state oil company Pemex. Police say the latest Pemex report indicates there are 551 clandestine fuel theft perforations detected in Veracruz. In Mexico’s southern state of Guerrero, four people were killed when gunmen fired on their vehicle on a rural road in the township of Coyuca de Benitez, state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said Wednesday./