Mexican police raid house looking for kidnappers

Police raided a house Friday outside Mexico City, capturing two alleged kidnappers and rescuing three people, including an 8-year-old girl, who had been held for more than two months. The dramatic morning raid, widely aired on Mexican television, comes as the Federal Agency of Investigation, the country's equivalent to the FBI, is being scrutinized for connections to drug traffickers and a video showing the killing of a drug hit man.

Federal police officials took reporters on a tour through the house's filthy rooms where the kidnapping victims were given only a bucket to go to the bathroom. Investigators also seized guns, fake I.D.s, and titles to stolen cars. Police detained a Mexican man and French woman, whose names were not released. Authorities said the two belong to a gang, tied to at least eight kidnappings, which police had been tracking for months.

The French woman told Mexican national television network Televisa she was simply dating the Mexican man and didn't know the people at the house had been kidnapped. "I would have reported it," she told reporters. "I didn't know." The Mexican man said he was hired to take care of the house and had nothing to do with the kidnappings. The victims included a woman and her 8-year-old daughter who were abducted while walking to the girl's school outside Mexico City. They were held along with a man who was kidnapped in Chalco, a poor community on the outskirts of Mexico City, reports the AP. N.U.