TIJUANA, Mexico – Investigators have arrested a Tijuana police commander accused of participating in killings and kidnappings ordered by a feared and powerful drug smuggling cartel based here, federal authorities said Sunday.
Heberto Yoc, 30, deputy director of an elite municipal police team assigned to the city's central district, was detained during a traffic stop Thursday in the Playas de Rosarito area.
At the time of the arrest, Yoc was driving a Ford Lobo pickup without license plates that had been stolen. Inside, police found guns and a bullet-resistant vest with the insignia of the Federal Agency of Investigation, the Mexican equivalent of the FBI.
He was transferred to Mexico City for questioning Saturday, according to a spokesman for the federal attorney general's office.
Investigators believe he may have taken bribes from the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cocaine and marijuana smuggling syndicate to orchestrate kidnappings and killings.
He has been linked by other detained drug suspects to at least five homicides and several high-profile abductions, including the drug-related kidnapping of six people in Tijuana in February, investigators say.
