MEXICO CITY: The former chief of the Mexican agency fighting organised crime was detained on Thursday in a sweeping probe of links between senior officials and drug cartels, the attorney general’s office said.

Noe Ramirez, the onetime chief of the Special Organised Crime Investigation Division, was detained as part of “Operation Clean-up” and is the latest in a number of senior officials arrested in recent weeks. Ramirez, who resigned earlier this year, had voluntarily spoken to investigators under the framework of the operation, and prosecutors deemed there was sufficient reason to detain him, the attorney general’s office said.

The office launched the operation in July against government officials who apparently gave information to the cartels of the Beltran Leyva brothers, who recently split from the Sinaloa drug cartel run by the fugitive Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman.

Four SIEDO members, including its intelligence chief, have been arrested since the operation got underway, and 35 other members have been sacked, the attorney general’s office said.

The head of Mexico’s Interpol office had also been arrested on suspicion he had contacts with the country’s major drug cartels.—AFP