Former top Mexican police official arrested on torture charges

Mexican authorities have arrested a former federal police chief on charges of torture, The Associated Press reported on Monday.

The office of Mexico’s attorney general said former Federal Police commander Luis Cardenas Palomino was arrested in the outskirts of Mexico City on charges of torturing a kidnapping suspect in 2012. 

Cardenas Palomino served under former security secretary Genaro Garcia Luna; both are known for allegedly staging a raid in front of TV cameras in 2005, during which they arrested two kidnapping suspects who were actually detained hours earlier, according to the AP. 

Garcia Luna is being held in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges, and U.S. prosecutors allege Cardenas Palomino took millions in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, which was once run by imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the AP reported. 

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told the newswire the arrest of Cardenas Palomino is a sign the country will “no longer tolerate corruption and abuse.”

“He was detained because there is no longer impunity, and that helps a lot,” López Obrador said. 

López Obrador abolished the federal police force in 2019, citing widespread corruption and abuses. Mexico’s government has struggled to establish policies to combat drug cartels. 

Garcia Luna, who served as the country’s secretary of public security for seven years, was arrested on drug trafficking charges by the U.S. authorities in 2019, the AP notes.