Mexico City (AFP) - Crooked cops, greedy governors and pusher-prosecutors: corruption and drug crime reach to high places in Mexico, which is getting a jolt from US efforts to hunt down top suspects.

Mexican marines escort a group of alleged municipal policemen working for the Zeta cartel, five members of the same cartel, and nine escaped inmates, in Veracruz, in 2011 © Mexican Navy Press Office/AFP/File Mexican Navy Press Office Mexico City (AFP) - Crooked cops, greedy governors and pusher-prosecutors: Corruption and drug crime reach to high places in Mexico, which is getting a jolt from US efforts to hunt down top suspects.

Analysts say officials have been getting away for decades with corruption in a country dominated by big, powerful drug gangs.

"There is a systemic problem of corruption among the local and state-level authorities," said Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence agent who is now a security consultant.

In the latest high-profile case grabbing headlines this week, the former Tamaulipas state governor Tomas Yarrington was arrested in Italy on Sunday.

In 2000 he posed smiling with the then-governor of Texas and future US president, George W. Bush.

Expelled in December from Mexico's governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, Yarrington is wanted on charges of drug-related crimes by both Mexico and the United States.

Several other PRI governors have been accused of corruption and misdealings. Javier Duarte is still on the run; Humberto Moreira was arrested in Spain last year on suspicion of money-laundering and embezzlement, but he was released and is back in Mexico and looking to run for office again.

Tomas Yarrington in Mexico City, May 23, 2005. Thomson Reuters

Mexican authorities offered $800,000 for Yarrington's capture. But analysts say what most sped up his arrest was pressure from up north.

"His detention has happened because the United States wanted it to, not so much because the Mexican government made a decisive decision," says Hope.

Opposition lawmaker Jorge Lopez Martin of the National Action Party called for Yarrington to be judged in the United States and not Mexico, "so that there can be no room for impunity."

Impunity

An "impunity index" study last year by the University of the Americas Puebla found that fewer than five percent of crimes reported in Mexico end up being punished.

Other estimates put it much lower — just seven of every 100 crimes in Mexico is reported, and only 4.46% of the crimes that were reported resulted in a conviction, meaning less than 1% of crimes in the country are punished.

"There is so much corruption, so much impunity, the judicial system is so easily corrupted and the penal system is so useless that it not only allows the drug trade but actually encourages many people to commit crimes," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at the Economic Research and Teaching Center.

"They know that the likelihood of being punished is minimal and that with a bit of luck they can buy off the judge and escape."

Humberto Moreira, center, a former ally of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, hugs his wife, Vanessa, as he leaves the Soto del Real penitentiary outside Madrid, Spain, January 22, 2016. REUTERS/Susana Ver

Police in California last month arrested the chief public attorney of the western Mexican state of Nayarit, Edgar Veytia, accused of trafficking cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine.

"They grabbed him there. Over here no one knew about it," Crespo said.

"Often it is the United States that puts an end to impunity. Here, they turn a blind eye."

Drugs

Federal authorities have vowed to crack down on crime, but corruption makes that difficult.

The Federal Police last week acknowledged apparent wrongdoing by a senior agent in its drug squad: Ivan Reyes Arzate, who was serving as a liaison with US police.

Police officers stand guard as members of the teacher's union CNTE (not pictured) march past the Revolution Monument in Mexico City, June 1, 2015. REUTERS/Henry Romero

Reyes turned himself in to police in Chicago after learning that he was being investigated for warning drug gangs when they were infiltrated or spied on.

The force's commissioner Manelich Castilla vowed to crack down on dodgy officers.

"There will be no place in the Federal Police for those who betray the ideals of this institution and the ideals of the country," he told a news conference. "They will be pursued and punished."

Embezzlement

Mexicans know the cost of drug crime, which has killed thousands. But corruption angers them even more, Hope says.

Javier Duarte, then Veracruz governor, in Xalapa, Mexico, August 10, 2015. Reuters

One recent case involved the fugitive former governor of the violence-stricken eastern state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte.

He was found to have left behind a store of artworks, antiques, luxury goods and even school and medical supplies apparently intended for social programs.

Embezzlement "generates much greater anger than just links to the drug trade," Hope said.

He said the problem goes back years but is being talked about more nowadays thanks to investigative journalism and social networks.

"The public has got fed up ... and even more so when it involves the theft of public money."