Criminal proceedings are believed to have been launched in Mexico against police officers who allegedly abducted three Italian visitors and sold them to a criminal gang.

The four officers — three men and a woman — confessed to having turned over the three men to an “organised crime” group, prosecutors say.

Raffaele Russo, 60, his 25-year-old son Antonio, and his nephew, Vincenzo Cimmino, 29, were in the country to sell machinery.

The three had stopped last month at a petrol station in Tecalitlan, an agricultural town in Jalisco state, where the police arrested them. They sent a last message to their family from a mobile device.

Relatives claimed the men were sold to a gang for 1,000 pesos (£38.50).

The Italians were handed over to an organised crime group by the local police, the state attorney-general said.

Authorities are believed to suspect the men of passing their goods off as expensive brands. But their families in Italy denied they were involved in any wrongdoing.