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Mexico confirms arrests in cartel massacre of Mormon family

Mexican officials have confirmed an “unspecified number” of arrests in connection with last week’s cartel massacre that left nine Mormon women and kids dead.

“There have been arrests, but it’s not up to us to give information,” Security Minister Alfonso Durazo told reporters Monday.

Prosecutors in Sonora, as well as at the federal level, are leading the investigation, according to Durazo.

But a spokeswoman for the state government of Sonora told Reuters, “We don’t have that information.”

Three women, 8-month-old twins and four other children were killed in the Nov. 4 bloodbath in the border state of Sonora, near where they worship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The families were members of La Mora, a decades-old settlement in Sonora founded as part of an offshoot of the mainline Mormon church.

Rhonita Maria Miller and her family
Rhonita Maria Miller and her familyFacebook

The massacre may have occurred after La Línea — an armed wing of the Juárez cartel — possibly confused the group’s large SUVs with those of the rival Salazar gang, which has been linked to the vicious crime ring once headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, local officials have said.

The FBI has opened an investigation into the shootout.

With Post wires