Mexican hacker group drops reprisal as member freed

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Persons claiming to be with the Mexican arm of "hacktivist" group Anonymous said Friday they were scrapping plans to expose information about the Zetas drug cartel after a kidnap victim was released.

Twitter messages from the accounts @anonhispano and @IberoAnon said the Anonymous activist kidnapped in the eastern city of Veracruz was freed ahead of a November 5 deadline set by Anonymous to divulge Zetas links to politicians and others working with the crime gang.

Experts said there was no way to verify the authenticity of the announcement, but that these accounts had in the past correctly predicted cyber attacks on Mexican government websites.

The purported Anonymous members also said in a statement to the "anonopsibero" blog that they had suspended "Operation Cartel" due to Zetas threats to innocent people.

"The Anonymous collective has decided by consensus that the information that we have will not be disclosed for now, as we cannot ignore threats involving innocent civilians," the statement said.

There was no comment from Mexican authorities, who previously indicated they could not verify the abduction.

In early October, the US security consultancy Stratfor said a video had circulated in which a masked individual claiming to be part of Anonymous had threatened to make some information public about the Zetas in retaliation for the kidnapping of an associate.

The Zetas emerged from a military arm of the Gulf cartel, and are among the main drug organizations involved in Mexico's bloodbath in recent years.

More than 45,000 people are believed to have been killed since 2006, when the government launched a massive military crackdown against powerful drug cartels  battling among themselves over the lucrative drug trade.