MEXICO CITY — Nearly 50 police officers were questioned in the disappearance of a top Mexican customs official in the port city of Veracruz, authorities said Wednesday.
The probe targeted traffic police in Veracruz, where customs administrator Francisco Serrano disappeared Monday night from the scene of an apparent traffic collision. Forty-seven police officers were held for questioning by federal authorities.
Salvador Mikel Rivera, attorney general for the state of Veracruz, said authorities decided to question all officers on duty that night after viewing security camera footage of a crash involving Serrano’s vehicle. The footage showed several police cars arriving. Serrano has not been seen since.
Veracruz is the nation’s main cargo port on the Gulf of Mexico and is watched by customs officials for smuggling of illegal drugs and other contraband.
The action came as federal authorities this week detained 58 police officers in the northern state of Nuevo Leon for suspected ties with drug traffickers.
Police corruption remains a major obstacle for Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s 30-month-old crackdown on drug cartels and other organized-crime groups.
Though the administration has sought to clean up the roughly 25,000-strong federal police, graft is entrenched in cities and small towns, where officers sometimes moonlight for drug smugglers.
