As many as 2,000 Mexican federal police and Sonora state police, supported by helicopters, invaded the Cananea copper mine on the night of June 6, firing tear gas and attacking and beating workers who were defending the mine. With the police having cleared the mine, managers from Grupo Mexico, the mine owner, took control of the facilities. The company reported that it had 2,000 "contractors" ready to go to work as soon as it was safe to do so.

Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the state-owned oil company, has accused BASF Corp., Murphy Energy Corp. and three other US companies of knowingly buying stolen natural gas condensate from Mexican bandits, according to a lawsuit filed in Houston federal court. Pemex Exploracion y Produccion, the company's production unit, accused the companies of facilitating a black market in natural gas condensate stolen from Pemex's Burgos Field on Mexico's Gulf Coast. As much as $300 million in liquids have been smuggled across the border in hijacked tanker trucks since 2006, Pemex asserts.

Two indigenous Mexican women, Teresa González Cornelio and Alberta Alcántara Juan, were released from prison on April 28 after serving more than three and a half years of a 21-year sentence for allegedly kidnapping six agents of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency (AFI). Their release followed a unanimous ruling by a five-member panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) that the two women, street vendors who belong to the Otomí indigenous group, had been falsely imprisoned. The charges against them stemmed from a March 26, 2006 incident in the market in Santiago Mexquititlán community, Amealco de Bonfil municipality in Querétaro state; the AFI agents had raided the market in an unsuccessful search for pirated DVDs, destroying the women's booth in the process.

Laredo police, acting on a tip, made their largest weapons seizure in 10 years after pulling over a truck laden with 147 brand new assault rifles, 200 high-capacity magazines, 53 bayonets and 10,000 rounds of ammunition that they believe was headed to Mexico on May 29. One of the two men in the vehicle tried to flee, but was apprehended. "Two Joe Blows aren't going to buy a bunch of weapons and it stops there," said Laredo Police Investigator Joe Baeza. "We're pretty positive it was headed to Mexico." ICE and the ATF are investigating. (AP, Laredo Sun, June 2)

Some 600 Mexican federal police agents used tear gas and nightsticks to remove about 100 members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) on May 27 from outside the Teopanzolco substation of the Central Light and Power Company (LFC) in Cuernavaca, capital of Morelos state, south of Mexico City. The unionists, who lost their jobs along with 44,000 other LFC employees when President Felipe Calderón suddenly liquidated the state-owned power company the night of Oct. 10, were blocking access to the facility to keep the police from removing five LFC vans. The workers said they were defending their source of work.

Up to 25 bodies, thought to be the victims of Mexico's ongoing narco-violence, have been found in the abandoned San Francisco Cuadra silver mine at Cacalotenango, Taxco de Alarcón municipality, in the southern state of Guerrero. The bodies appeared to have been thrown down a 180-meter ventilation shaft over a period of months, authorities said. A search of the shaft is ongoing, and authorities say more bodies may be found. Federal police have arrested 15 as suspects in connection with the clandestine mass grave—although most are being held on firearms and "organized delinquency" charges. The 15 were arrested in a barrio on the southern outskirts of Iguala city, following a tip about armed men wearing the uniforms of the disbanded Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI). (BBC News, Notimex, La Jornada, May 31; Milenio, May 30)

Gregorio Sánchez Martínez, a gubernatorial candidate from the Yucatan Peninsula state of Quintana Roo, was arrested by Mexican federal police May 25 as he arrived at Cancún airport on a flight from Mexico City. He faces charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime, with federal prosecutors accusing him of provided information and protection to Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva gang. But supporters of Sánchez, who recently took a leave as Cancún's mayor to run for governor, condemned the charges as politically motivated.

Five participants in an open-ended hunger strike by dozens of laid-off Mexican electrical workers were taken to the hospital on May 21 and 22 as the protest reached the four-week mark. About 68 hunger strikers remained camped out in Mexico City's main plaza, the Zócalo, in the workers' latest protest against President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's sudden liquidation of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) the night of Oct. 10. More than 17,000 of the 44,000 laid-off LFC workers, represented by the 95-year-old Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), have rejected the government's severance package, choosing to fight the closing with protests and lawsuits.