SAN DIEGO -- Prosecutors have charged 10 police officials but freed 32 others after a mass arrest in northern Baja California, Mexico, to roundup suspects with alleged ties to the Arellano-Felix drug gang, Mexico's attorney general said Monday.

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Fox Did His Best To Side-Step Issue

The state and local police were detained Wednesday during a raid at the police academy in the border city of Tecate, 65 miles east of Tijuana. They were then flown to Mexico City.

Among those freed without charges were assistant state prosecutor Rogelio Delgado Neri; Tijuana's top police administrator, Carlos Edmundo Otal Namur; and a Tijuana precinct chief, Jesus Jacobo Aguirre.

But the federal attorney general's office said prosecutors would continue investigating those cases and charges were still possible.

Among those facing drug-related charges are a commander for the state ministerial police, Mario Anaya, and Mexicali police commander Juan Cristobal Aguilar.

The arrests were the latest blow to Mexico's most violent drug gang, which recently lost its alleged leaders, Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix. Ramon died at the hands of police in February, and Benjamin was arrested by federal agents in March.

A few days later, police arrested Manuel Herrera Barraza, allegedly the principal smuggler for the Arellano Felix cartel.

Struggle Against Corruption A Difficult One

Mexican president Vicente Fox visited Tijuana Monday for a ribbon cutting at a Maquilladora, but was expected to answer questions about last week's arrests, 10News reported.

When he first took office, Fox ran on a campaign of bringing government corruption to "tolerable levels," but that task has been a daunting one.

Over the years, Tijuana police have cruised the streets with drug lords in Chevy Suburbans during the day, then put on their badges to fight crime in the violent border city at night.

"Police here have not just been involved with the cartels, they've been in with the migrant smugglers, the car thieves, the kidnapping rings. They ask for bribes from crack houses," Tijuana sociologist Victor Clark said.

However, last weeks arrests are "a major step forward," according Jose Z. Garcia, director of New Mexico State University's Center for Latin American Studies.

Drug lords from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean have hired scores of police, judges and other officials in exchange for allowing tons of drugs to pass into the United States.

"The corruption was so bad that we could not with confidence exchange information" with Mexican authorities, said Donald Thornhill Jr., a spokesman with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in San Diego.

The drug ring run by the Arellano Felix cartel allegedly smuggled tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States during the last decade and is blamed for 300 murders on both sides of the border.

The gang spends more than $25 million a year in bribes, according to a DEA conservative estimate, making it tough for Fox's government to combat corruption.

"Mexico needs to prove that there is a system in place to weed out the bad apples," Garcia said.

Past efforts to reform police have not made much difference. After being appointed Tijuana police chief in 1992, Federico Benitez fired some 400 officers, initiated human rights training and raised salaries.

Still, the corruption continued. In one instance, corrupt state police officers riding with one of the Arellano brothers shot at federal police who stopped them, killing a commander.

In 1994, Benitez was gunned down while driving his car.

The rampant corruption even backfired on the Arellano Felix gang. Ramon Arellano Felix, considered Mexico's most violent drug lord, was shot to death Feb. 10 in what U.S. authorities believe was an execution by police working for a rival trafficker.

Authorities also arrested Ramon's brother, Benjamin, and the group's alleged principal smuggler, Manuel Herrera Barraza, in March.

Yet two other Arellano Felix brothers remain at large.

"There are no indications the (drug gang) has been completely done away with," Thornhill said.

That means the corruption likely has not, either. Julio Gandara, a Tijuana police officer for eight years, said people are used to seeing corrupt officers arrested while good officers continue performing their duties.

"It's been happening for so many years this type of thing doesn't really affect us," Gandara said. "Boss after boss has come through here, but nothing changes for us."