MEXICO CITY – Eight members of the norteño band Los Tecateros were arrested on charges of selling drugs and beating up a man, Mexico City police said Monday.

The eight suspects were caught early Sunday selling drugs in front of a supermarket on the highway between Mexico City and Cuernavaca.

The musicians overheard a passerby calling police and attacked him, hitting him on the head with a machine gun they were carrying, grabbing his cell phone and stealing 600 pesos ($45) in cash from him.

The suspects tried to flee in an SUV, but they were caught by police.

The injured man was treated at the scene by paramedics.

Seven men, ranging in age from 18 to 37, and a 26-year-old woman were arrested.

Police seized a machine gun, 200 grams of cocaine, bags and a scale from the suspects.

Some norteño singers perform what are known in Mexico as “narcocorridos,” ballads that recount the exploits and travails of drug kingpins.

Reports claim that drug capos pay large sums for the ballads and more than a dozen singers have been murdered since 1992.

Mexican media reported last week that the army was investigating an incident in which a band that imitates the Sonora Dinamita group was held hostage for more than 12 hours by drug traffickers who forced them to play at a party.

Singer Carlos Ocaranza was gunned down Aug. 16 as he left a bar where he had given a concert in the western city of Guadalajara and his agent was seriously wounded.

Ocaranza, who was related to a famous singer murdered nearly three years ago, had just finished performing at the La Revancha bar in the city’s western section, Jalisco state police said.

Two gunmen were waiting for the 32-year-old Ocaranza in the street outside the bar and fled on a motorcycle after shooting him.

Investigators found 12 bullet casings from 9 mm weapons at the crime scene.

Ocaranza’s agent, Jorge Altamirano Pelayo, was hospitalized following the shooting.

Ocaranza was related to Valentin Elizalde, who was murdered in November 2006 in the border city of Reynosa by drug traffickers apparently unhappy with some of his compositions, the Jalisco state Attorney General’s Office said. EFE