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Mexican police find 4 mutilated bodies in bags

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-10 13:01

MORELIA, Mexico: Police in western Mexico found four mutilated bodies in plastic bags on the side of a highway Thursday.

The officials found the bodies in the town of La Huacana after receiving reports of plastic bags leaking blood, according to a statement from prosecutors in the state of Michoacan, where the town is located.

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The discovery came on the same day the federal Attorney General's Office announced the arrest of the town's former mayor for alleged ties to La Familia drug cartel.

Mario Manuel Romero Tinoco was transferred to a maximum-security prison in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit, the office said in a statement.

In May, federal agents arrested 10 other Michoacan mayors on suspicion of protecting La Familia. Seven of the officials remain in custody.

On Wednesday, investigators found a severed head and two arms inside a plastic bag in the nearby town of Ario de Rosales, also in Michoacan.

President Felipe Calderon's home state, Michoacan is a major focus of his administration's crackdown on drug traffickers. More than 10,800 people have died since 2006, when Calderon began sending thousands of troops throughout the country to battle drug traffickers.