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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Officials say federal police in Mexico have taken control of 13 southern municipalities where local police are suspected of links to organized crime and possibly to the case of 43 missing students.
The municipalities are all within a roughly 125-mile radius of the town of Iguala, where the students from a rural teachers' college disappeared more than three weeks ago after a confrontation with police.
National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido says authorities investigating the disappearance of the students have found "irregularities" and "presumed links to organized crime" in the 13 municipal police forces.
Federal forces already had disarmed local police in Iguala and Cocula, and arrested a total of 36 police officers. Both the mayor and police chief of Iguala are fugitives and accused of links to the local drug cartel.
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