BY LISA J. ADAMS
  Associated Press

  MEXICO CITY - Federal authorities have uncovered an extensive network of corrupt employees that for years sold classified information to drug
  traffickers and organized crime groups, helping them to avoid capture, Mexico's attorney general said Monday.

  The corrupt officials include current and former employees of various departments including the Federal Preventative Police, the military and the attorney
  general's office itself, said Rafael Macedo de la Concha.

  The federal agencies were infiltrated ''by individuals without scruples or values, who lacked loyalty and betrayed the confidence of both the institutions
  and the public,'' Macedo said.

  The corrupt employees ''handed over privileged information from investigations to different cartels, which used the information to corrupt other dishonest
  public servants, and in this way they were able to act with impunity and escape justice,'' he said.

  The officials were paid monthly to provide information to the organizations of two major Mexican drug traffickers: Ismael Zambada, a trafficker based in
  the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, leader of a once-powerful drug organization in the northern city of Juárez, Macedo said.

  He also said investigations showed that corrupt officials had links to Juan Diego Espinoza, who Macedo said heads a drug gang active in Mexico and
  Colombia.

  At least 25 current and former public officials have been detained and others are being investigated.

  Macedo did not say exactly how much each employees received in bribes, but said their lavish lifestyles led investigators to believe that they were
  making large amounts of money.

  An official from a district attorney's office in Mexico City, identified as Elvia Ramírez García, received 30,000 pesos ($3,000) for each classified file she
  passed on to the criminal networks, Macedo said.

  The attorney general said the infiltration network had existed for years but that authorities began to unravel it a year ago when defense department
  agents in Sinaloa found vehicles belonging to an employee of Zambada that contained classified documents.

  The documents led them to other suspects and houses where they found sophisticated communications-interception equipment.

  During a number of investigations, police seized high-powered weapons, numerous vehicles and more than $2 million. Macedo said the investigation
  owed much of its success to a newfound cooperation between the three agencies that was forged under the administration of President Vicente Fox.