TIJUANA, Mexico- Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, one of Mexico's most flamboyant businessmen and politicians, has been detained on suspicion of illegal-weapons possession, the federal Attorney General's Office announced Saturday.
Troops raided Hank Rhon's Tijuana house and found 88 guns, officials said. The Attorney General's Office said Hank Rhon and 10 other people were detained.
Mexican law limits ownership of large firearms to the military and requires licensing of most other guns. Violations can bring 15 years in prison.
Hank Rhon was mayor of Tijuana from 2004 to 2007, but lost in a run for Baja California state governor that year. He owns a dog track, a nationwide chain of off-track-betting parlors and the Tijuana soccer team that last month won advancement into Mexico's top soccer league.
His private zoo at one point had 20,000 animals, five times more than the San Diego Zoo.
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The announcement from the Attorney General's Office said soldiers responding to a citizen complaint caught three armed people near a hotel, and they acknowledged that weapons were hidden in a house in the Colonia Hipodromo neighborhood, leading troops to search it.
In addition to 40 rifles and 48 handguns, the Attorney General's Office said troops found 9,298 cartridges, 70 ammunition clips and a gas grenade.
Hank Rhon's Tijuana-based gambling operations, which include a giant casino in the center of the city, have long drawn suspicion from U.S. regulators. Law enforcement agencies often see gambling as an easy way to launder illegal money, and Tijuana is a major corridor for drug traffic to the United States.
