López Obrador makes announcement following release of alleged leader of local drug gang believed to have killed the students

Mexico’s president has promised to investigate the botched investigation into the abduction and disappearance of 43 teacher trainees in 2014 – one of the country’s most notorious crimes and an atrocity the then government tried to downplay as a minor local matter.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador made the announcement on Wednesday following the release of an alleged leader of the local drug gang believed to have killed the missing students who were abducted by corrupt police officers in the town of Iguala.

López Obrador remains broadly popular, likely due to success at upending a political system most voters perceived as riddled with corruption

His government has just signed off on a new trade deal with Canada and the US, and his diplomats managed to fend off punitive US tariffs, but Andrés Manuel López Obrador has long showed a crushing lack of interest in foreign affairs.

So instead of hobnobbing with other G20 leaders in Japan, the president known popularly as “Amlo” was in Mexico City, preparing to address thousands of supporters in the city’s central square on Monday.

Mexican president was thanked with an ode while aboard a low-cost flight to Tepic

When Andrés Manuel López Obrador put his presidential Boeing up for sale last year and pledged to travel economy class around Mexico, it was part of a budget-slashing populist push to get closer to the people.

Related: Mexican minister resigns after causing 38-minute flight delay

Funds from auction of 82 cars worth total of £1m will go to deprived communities

Dozens of luxury cars seized from sticky-fingered politicians and mobsters will go under the hammer this weekend as part of a populist anti-corruption crusade being waged by Mexico’s leftist president.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has vowed that proceeds from Sunday’s auction will be channelled into social programmes and deprived communities.