Uriel Chávez Mendoza, Mayor Of Apatzingán In Michoacán, Arrested For Drug Cartel Association

The mayor of a city in Mexico has been arrested by prosecutors on allegations that he extorted money and aided a drug cartel in their command over the city, reports the Associated Press.

In Apatzingán, a city in the western state of Michoacán, mayor Uriel Chavez Mendoza has been arrested on charges that he assisted the Knights Templar drug cartel extort money from city council members. The arrest took place late Tuesday night after three city council members gave testimony that Chavez Mendoza took them to a rural area, where gunmen from the cartel forced them to shell out $1,500 dollars (20,000 pesos at 13 pesos to the dollar).

The prosecutors have disclosed that the incident took place in January of 2012, during a time when the cartel was incredibly powerful, and the cartel members supposedly said they were going to use the money to buy weapons.

While cartels in Mexico are notorious for drug trafficking, Mexican authorities have revealed that the Knights Templar cartel's largest source of money flow comes from illegal mining, illegal logging, and extortion. Locals have claimed that many small town governments are forced to give over 10 percent of the money given by the federal government to the cartels.

Since February of 2013, a "self-defense" vigilante movement formed in the region that was previously controlled by the Knights Templar cartel. Known locally as autodefensas, the vigilante group has slowly been gaining momentum in regions by killing cartel members, destroying their symbols and declaring towns and villages to be free. The governments response to the vigilante group has been mixed, thus far, with arrests made last year to the group being brought under the umbrella of the Mexican army.