Mexico City, May 12 (RHC) – Mexico's rural police force is recruiting members of self-defence vigilante groups that have been established to fight local drug cartels in the western state of Michoacan.

The armed vigilante groups have been successful in chasing out members of the Knights Templar drug cartel from their community, but the armed groups have also clashed with police.

Now, in a bid to disarm the vigilantes, the police have successfully recruited 3,000 of them. However, some have refused to join and face being on the wrong side of the law unless they disarm.

Since the crackdown on cartels by vigilantes began last year, Knights Templar drugs cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzales has been shot dead and a number of the group's senior members have been arrested.

The incorporation of vigilantes into the police force will now enable the authorities to stamp out a number of fake vigilante groups that have emerged as a consequence.

However, some vigilantes are hesitant to join the police as they fear that it was police incompetence and corruption that allowed the cartels into their areas in the first place.