Mexico plans to resume iron ore exports from the port of Lazaro Cardenas in western Mexico, where a powerful drug gang had been illegally shipping it to China, a government official said on Tuesday. In 2013, Mexico’s navy took over the port in the unruly state of Michoacan to combat the illegal shipments which were allegedly run by the Knights Templar drug cartel. “There are two (export) permits that have just been given and we would expect it to normalize soon,” said Mario Cantu, a mining official at Mexico’s economy ministry. Michoacan is Mexico’s top producer of iron ore, and the port, which occupies a strategic position on the Pacific coast, has drawn Chinese traders who ship steel to their homeland. The Knights Templar, who took their name from a medieval military order that protected Christian pilgrims during the Crusades, have broadened out from the drug trade to extortion in a bid to diversify their businesses.