2 Mexican police arrested for rape of Italian tourist

Two Mexican police officers have been arrested for the rape of an Italian tourist in a Caribbean resort, officials said Thursday, in the second rape case in a Mexican tourist spot this month. Authorities are also searching for a senior police officer who fled after allegedly taking part in the sexual assault in an alley between two clubs in the Playa del Carmen resort at 4:00 am on February 12, the Quintana Roo state prosecutor's office said in a statement. The victim said the tourist police officers raped her after she and her companion refused to hand over 3,000 pesos ($231). The couple had gone into the alley to urinate after coming out of a club. The attack came one week after six Spanish tourists were gang raped by gunmen who stormed their beach bungalow in the Pacific resort of Acapulco. Six men were arrested and confessed to the crime, authorities said. Acapulco has been hit by a wave of drug gang crime in recent years but tourists had been relatively spared from the violence until then. Playa del Carmen and the other Mayan Riviera resort of Cancun have been relatively safe from Mexico's crime wave.