Mexico's drug corruption scandals reached into the presidential guard as authorities identified one officer as a possible spy for the country's violent drug cartels.
An official of the federal prosecutor's office who was not authorized to be quoted by name identified Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez today (Saturday, December 27, 2008) as an army major who was assigned to the unit that guards the president.
Prosecutors announced on Friday that Gonzalez Rodriguez had been placed under hour arrest for 40 days while he is investigated.
The prosecution official said there are allegations that the officer passed information to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in exchange for payments of as much as $100,000.
The official could not confirm what type of information the major purportedly passed to drug traffickers, but the newspaper El Universal cited testimony indicating that Gonzalez Rodriguez may have informed traffickers about the activities of President Felipe Calderon.
In 2007, Calderon said members of the federal government have received threats from traffickers.
"There have been a lot of threats - whether they have been false or real - but they won't stop us from taking action," Calderon said.
More than a dozen high-ranking police and prosecution officials have been detained on similar allegations of spying for cartels in recent months, but none has been linked so closely to the president's office.
Soon after Calderon took office two years ago, he launched a nationwide offensive to take back territory controlled by drug gangs, deploying more than 20,000 soldiers.
In recent months, his administration has also launched Operation Clean House, to combat corruption in the nation's law enforcement agencies.
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