Mexican drug kingpin on public payroll
Published December 08, 2010
| EFE
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Mexico City – One of Mexico's most-wanted drug traffickers is on the public payroll as a teacher in the western state of Michoacan and has collected roughly $4,000 in salary this year, according to information posted on a government Web site.
Servando Gomez Martinez, reputedly a leading member of the La Familia Michoacana cartel, has been a teacher for 15 years and is currently assigned to a small primary school in Arteaga, Michoacan.
The records posted on the Web site of the Public Education Department indicate that Gomez Martinez, alias "La Tuta," received the equivalent of around $4,000 in salary during the January-March period, even though he didn't teach a single class.
The identification number given for Gomez Martinez on the department's Web site matches up with that on his official record at the National Population Registry.
After the news broke, Education Secretary Alonso Lujambio told reporters Wednesday that it was up to the judiciary to investigate the case, not his department.
Teachers are hired at the state level and education officials in Michoacan must take the initiative to have the courts investigate, the secretary said.
Gomez Martinez's dossier at the Mexican Attorney General's Office states that he was a teacher and then a farmer before getting into the illegal drug trade.
Authorities are offering millions of dollars in reward money for information leading to his capture.
Gomez Martinez came to public attention in 2008, when he offered the federal government a truce amid a series of violent clashes between La Familia gunmen and Mexican security forces.
La Familia Michoacana, which operates in Michoacan, Guerrero and regions surrounding the Mexico City metropolitan area, is considered the country's largest trafficker of synthetic drugs and a major source of the crystal meth consumed in the United States.
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