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Former Mexican ruling party boss arrested in Spain - officials


    MADRID (Reuters) - A former head of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and onetime ally of President Enrique Pena Nieto has been arrested in Spain, Mexican and Spanish officials said on Friday.

    Humberto Moreira, who was chairman of the PRI in 2011 before he stood down after a debt scandal was uncovered in Coahuila, the state he had previously governed, was arrested in Madrid's international airport, according to the Spanish official.

    The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Moreira was arrested in an operation against money laundering and other crimes, the Spanish official said.

    Moreira's former finance secretary in Coahuila pled guilty in Texas to federal money laundering charges in 2014 and the man who replaced him as interim governor is also wanted in the United States on suspicion of embezzling millions.

    (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Rodrigo de Miguel in Madrid; Editing by Chris Reese)