Fronteras

The Chief Prosecutor in Mexico City says a former high-ranking member of the country’s anti-money laundering office has been arrested for alleged extortion.

Rodolfo Rios says Jose Luis Marmolejo was arrested over the weekend.

Although Rios has not offered up any details, media in Mexico City say Jose Luis Marmolejo has been detained on suspicion he demanded money from a local businessman in return for clearing up the man’s legal case.

Information on that case has not been released.

Marmolejo served in the federal attorney general’s organized crime and money laundering offices in the mid-2000s.

This scenario — a figure who fights corruption is arrested for corruption — has replayed itself numerous times in recent Mexican history. The most famous case had a connection to the United States, the case of former Mexican General Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo.

Handpicked for the job by the Mexican president and lauded by the U.S. government for his honesty, Gutierrez Rebollo was embraced as the perfect anti-drug crusader.

But weeks into the job, Gutierrez Rebollo was fired in February 1997 and then convicted of working for a cartel he was purportedly trying to take down.

In the Steven Soderbergh movie "Traffic," the character named General Arturo Salazar is closely modeled after Gutierrez Rebollo.

Gutierrez Rebollo died in December from brain cancer in a Mexican military prison.