(no links)
Mexico ‘s money laundering fight praised - Some analysts scoff at U.S. official’s view
The Dallas Morning News - Wednesday, August 6, 1997
Author: Tracey Eaton, Mexico City Bureau of The Dallas Morning News
MEXICO CITY - American drug agents say corruption and lax enforcement have turned Mexico into one of the hemisphere’s premier money - laundering spots. But a U.S. Treasury official whose agency oversees investigations into the stashing of illicit cash had little but praise for his Mexican counterparts on Tuesday.
“The progress Mexico has made in criminalizing money laundering . . . has been impressive,” said deputy treasury secretary Lawrence Summers. He was meeting with American and British reporters during a visit to Mexico City.
Some drug-trade analysts scoff at that view, saying the Clinton administration is underestimating the threat of Mexico ‘s drug cartels.
“Obviously the most important fact here is that as far as anyone can tell, drugs continue to go through Mexico , profits are laundered in Mexico and there’s no evidence of any decrease,” said John Walters, deputy drug czar under former President George Bush.
“But the current posture by the federal government is to cravenly play down drug trafficking and how deep the corruption is in Mexico ‘s institutions. “ Mr. Summers denied playing down the problem of money laundering and related corruption.
“Fighting money laundering is profoundly important,” he said.
“We have seen a number of prosecutions. “ In a case involving Raul Salinas, brother of former President Carlos Salinas, money - laundering charges were recently dropped for a lack of evidence.
Mr. Summers declined to talk about that case. Nor would he characterize the extent of money laundering in Mexico . He also refused to release the Treasury Department’s own estimates on the amount of money laundered in Mexico , saying the numbers were not “sufficiently definitive for me to quote. “ Latin Trade , a business magazine based in Miami, estimates in its September edition that as much as $15 billion in drug proceeds is laundered in Mexico every year. That figure is equal to 5 percent of Mexico ‘s gross domestic product.
(snip)
130 held in drug money probe - Mexican cartel’s cash linked to Chicago
Chicago Sun-Times - Tuesday, May 19, 1998
Author: CAM SIMPSON AND LYNN SWEET
Chicago was the center of money - laundering operations for the notorious Juarez drug cartel of Mexico , according to federal authorities, who announced Monday the arrest of about 10 people here and more than 130 nationwide.
The three-year investigation capped the “largest, most comprehensive drug money - laundering case in the history of U.S. law enforcement,” Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said.
Chicago served as a “command and control center,” where money was stored in houses, garages and even specially constructed underground vaults to be prepared for shipping to Mexico , a senior agent with the U.S. Customs Service said. As much as $200 million in Juarez drug money passed through Chicago, although a lesser amount is specified in the indictment.
Chicago turned out to be a “collection point for drug sales in the Midwest,” the agent said. Proceeds were delivered and stored until shipment to Mexico .
Three separate but related indictments were unsealed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles. They target Mexican bankers, who allegedly laundered money for the Cali drug cartel of Colombia, and reputed money launderers for the Juarez cartel.
At the center of the Chicago Juarez money laundering operation was Jose Alvarez-Tostado, according to law enforcement authorities in Los Angeles. They accused Alvarez-Tostado of being the “boss” of a “Chicago-based operation that controlled the collection and laundering of drug proceeds on behalf of the Juarez” drug cartel.
Specifically, the indictment outlines 14 deliveries of drug proceeds collected in the Chicago area between May, 1997, and Feb. 26, 1998. It alleges those deliveries totaled more than $27 million. None of that money , however, was seized.
A Treasury Department source said the indictment covered “only the tip of the iceberg” of a larger operation that moved $200 million in alleged Juarez drug profits through Chicago.
(snip)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/19/world/la-fg-mexico-money-laundering-trade-20111219
CARTELS USE LEGITIMATE TRADE TO LAUNDER MONEY , U.S., MEXICO SAY
Aberdeen American News (SD) - Monday, December 19, 2011
Author: Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Mexico City
It’s fast becoming the money - laundering method of choice for Mexican drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials say, and it involves truckloads not of cash, but of fruit and fabric.
Faced with new restrictions on the use of U.S. cash in Mexico , drug cartels are using an ingenious scheme to move their ill-gotten dollars south under the guise of legitimate cross-border commerce.
U.S. and Mexican authorities say trade-based money - laundering may be the most clever - and hardest to detect - way in which traffickers are washing and distributing their billion-dollar profits.
FULL COVERAGE: Mexico ‘s drug war
“It’s such a great scheme,” said an undercover agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agency. “You could hide dirty money in so much legitimate business, and they do. You can audit their books all day long and all you see is goods being imported and exported.”
Here’s one way it works: Instead of smuggling the money the old-fashioned way, by simply carrying it south in bags and trucks, teams of money launderers working for cartels use dollars to purchase a commodity, and then export the commodity to Mexico or Colombia. Paperwork is generated that gives a patina of propriety. Drug money is given the appearance of legitimate proceeds from a trade transaction.
By turning their mountain of proceeds into tomatoes, say, or bolts of Chinese fabric shipped and resold in Mexico , cartels accomplish two goals at once: They transfer earnings back home to pay bills and buy new drug supplies while converting dollars to pesos in a transaction relatively easy to explain to authorities.
Long used by Colombian cartels, the scheme is becoming more popular with Mexican traffickers after new efforts here to combat laundering by restricting the use of dollars. Those restrictions, plus proposed limits on cash purchases of big-ticket items such as houses and boats, make it less attractive for traffickers to hold trunks full of U.S. cash.
After many years of using dollars to buy luxury items and pay their suppliers and dealers, cartel capos have suddenly found themselves in need of pesos. Trade-based money - laundering solves that problem.
“It’s a better way to conceal proceeds,” said Raymond Villanueva, head of an ICE unit that investigates international money - laundering . “It’s not going to raise so many flags.”
The pioneer in the trade-based technique in Mexico may have been Blanca Cazares, the alleged queen of money - laundering for the multibillion-dollar Sinaloa cartel. Los Angeles County prosecutors indicted her in 2008 on charges of heading a vast operation dedicated to “processing illicit proceeds” for the cartel; a onetime resident of Bell, she remains at large, presumably in Mexico .
(snip)
Specifically, the indictment outlines 14 deliveries of drug proceeds collected in the Chicago area between May, 1997, and Feb. 26, 1998. It alleges those deliveries totaled more than $27 million. None of that money , however, was seized.
Or it least that's the official line. Wonder whose pocket it went into?????
They may have temporarily slowed it down, but would bet it was never stopped. Going to look through CHicago thread to see who the politician was that worked with hispanic community.