Mexican police arrest four leading smugglers

MEXICO CITY, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Mexican police have arrested four leading members of a drug smuggling organization, local media said on Wednesday.

The drug smuggling gang, La Familia (The Family), murdered 23 people at the beginning of the month. In one of the incidents, 12 federal police officers were tortured and then killed in a field that links the town of Uruapan to the western state of Michoacan's main port, Lazaro Cardenas.

After the wave of violence, which saw shoot-outs in eight towns of Michoacan, the Mexican authorities sent 3,300 federal police and soldiers to the state.

It is said that the gang used the town of Lazaro Cardenas to illegally import cocaine from Colombia, most of which was then smuggled to the United States.