Three Federal Police officers were killed in a shoot-out at a food court in Terminal 2 of Mexico City's Benito Juárez International Airport on June 25, sending travelers scrambling for cover under tables and into bathrooms. Although initial accounts said police were met with gunfire when they tried to arrest suspected traffickers, the Public Security Secretary later admitted that both sides in the shoot-out were uniformed Federal Police. A team of agents was apparently trying to arrest two other uniformed agents, who responded with gunfire. No civilians were reported wounded. Prosecutor General Marisela Morales says she has ordered in investigation into cartel infiltration of police at the airport. Mexico City's own Federal District Prosecutor General of Justice (PGJDF), which oversees a "Secure Airport" program to coordinate police forces at Benito Juárez, said it had detected no signs of personnel at the facility being co-opted by traffickers. (Excelsior, Notimex, El Universal, June 26; LAT, June 25)

US president Barack Obama invoked executive privilege on June 20 to justify the Justice Department's refusal to provide the House of Representatives with some of its documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled program in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) inadvertently let about 2,000 firearms "walk" into Mexico during 2009 and 2010. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had subpoenaed the documents from the Justice Department. The House of Representatives could vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to comply with the subpoena.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), reported on June 18 that eight members of the LGBT community in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been murdered since the beginning of the year. The latest victim was 18-year-old Antonio Calderón Peralta, whose body was found in Chilpancingo, the state capital, on June 9. The youth, who was dressed in women's clothes, had been beaten to death. The discovery of Calderón's body came two days after Guerrero's LGBT community held a march in Chilpancingo supporting sexual diversity.

Mexico's government admitted June 23 that it had mistakenly identified a detained man as the son of the country's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquín Guzmán AKA "El Chapo"—leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Just a day earlier, a man arrested in the Guadalajara suburb of Zapopan was paraded before the media as Jesús Alfredo Guzmán AKA "El Gordo"—his capture hailed as the most important blow against the cartel in years. But a lawyer purporting to speak for the Guzmán family released a statement denying that the suspect in custody was the fugitive kingpin's son. The arrested man's mother spoke to journalists, denying any link to Joaquín Guzmán or the Sinaloa Cartel. The Prosecutor General was forced to acknowledge that the arrested man was in fact Félix Beltrán León, a car salesman. Nonetheless, Beltrán León and his brother Kevin were ordered jailed for 40 days while they are investigated for organized crime links. (BBC News, El Universal, June 23; BBC News, LAT, June 22)

Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's leading presidential candidate, this week appointed Gen. Oscar Naranjo, former chief of Colombia's National Police, to work as an "external advisor" for public security if he wins the July 1 election. Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), called Colombia a "successful example" for Mexico in the fight against drug cartels. Naranjo is credited with helping take down Medellín Cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar in 1993, and more recent gains against the FARC guerillas. In a press conference with Peña Nieto, Naranjo employed the rhetoric of Colombia's so-called "democratic security" model: "Security, understood as a democratic value, is expressed in policies that are totally inclusive, that protect everyone." An official biography of Naranjo distributed to reporters lists him as an "honorary member" of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Tens of thousands marched through the center of Mexico City on June 10 in a festive protest against former México state governor Enrique Peña Nieto, the frontrunner in the July 1 presidential election, and against the television networks that the demonstrators said were promoting his candidacy. The march was the latest in a series of protests since a new student movement widely known as "#YoSoy132" ("I'm number 132") appeared suddenly in May in opposition to Peña Nieto and the likely return of his centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power; the PRI dominated Mexican politics for 71 years until losing the presidency in 2000. The capital's police estimated the crowd at 90,000 on June 10, about twice the police estimate for a similar march on May 19. (La Jornada, Mexico, June 11)

Backed up by Mexican soldiers, state homicide detectives arrested the municipal police chief and six other police agents in Lagos de Moreno in the western state of Jalisco on June 6 for allegedly participating in the kidnapping of three men five months earlier. The victims—attorney César Raúl Alcalá Gaona; his assistant, Jorge Alejandro Arredondo Siller; and construction worker Jorge Alberto Bustos Nájera, all from Saltillo, Coahuila—were found dead from asphyxiation and beating a few hours after they were kidnapped. The police agents are believed to have been working for Jalisco New Generation, a drug gang.

In a wee-hours raid on June 12, heavily armed FBI and Border Patrol agents in 15 vehicles swept into the Ruidoso Downs Racetrack and Casino, in Ruidoso, NM, seizing dozens of racehorses. A simultaneous raid was carried out at Zule Farms, in Lexington, Okla, which apparently supplied horses to the Ruidoso track. A total of seven were arrested in the raids, accused of using the horse trade to launder money for Los Zetas drug cartel. Indicted in the case are accused Zeta commanders Miguel Angel Treviño Morales AKA "Z-40" and his brother Oscar Omar Treviño Morales AKA "Z-42"—who are presumed to remain at large in Mexico. (El Paso Times, AP, June 13; El Paso Times, June 12)