Tijuana police officer arrested

Authorities say he's suspected of role in abductions

By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 3, 2005

TIJUANA – Mexican authorities have arrested a city police officer they say is linked to a series of drug-related kidnappings and killings.

Heberto Yoc Hernández, 30, who oversaw an elite squad of officers as an assistant chief, was stopped Thursday night in Rosarito Beach, Mexican authorities said.

Yoc attempted to evade authorities while driving a 2004 Ford pickup without license plates, Mexican authorities said. Police checking the car found a pistol, an assault rifle and a jacket for a federal police agency, Mexican authorities said.

Yoc allegedly told Mexican authorities that he "provided his services to a criminal cell in Tijuana," according to a statement provided by the Baja California Attorney General's Office. It was unclear whether that referred to the region's Arellano Félix drug group or their rivals.

Mexican authorities said he allegedly participated in the abduction of two men earlier this year in Tijuana. The motive was collecting dues for drug-trafficking activities, according to the statement.

Mexican authorities said Yoc also was involved in the February abductions of six people in Tijuana that stemmed from drug-trafficking debts. He was linked to the Nov. 22 abduction of Gontran Bustamante Pérez, who was later killed, as well as the killing earlier this year of three people whose bodies were found in a vehicle in Rosarito Beach, Mexican authorities said.

He allegedly confessed to working with a group of state and city police officers detained in Tijuana in October 2005. Mexican authorities said he was arrested by a multiagency law-enforcement group.