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Page 18 ■ Tuesday, March 21, 1995 ■ The Brownsville HeraldDrug cartels infiltrate MexicoBy ESTHER SCHRADER Knight-Ridder NewspapersMEXICO CITY — Narcotics investigators are increasingly pessimistic the advance of Mexican drug cartels can be stopped.One reason for their resignation is the growth of drug money-laundering operations. Mexican and United States officials now know that Mexico’s drug gangs are laundering billions of dollars through legitimate businesses — from hotels to hospitals to currency exchanges. The drug-based economy is estimated to be larger than that of the country’s top industries, including the petroleum industry.Another factor is the extent to which drug money is being used to buy off the country’s law enforcement officials. For example, Mexico’s former top anti-drug official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, is believed to have taken at least $18 million from the country’s drug gangs in return for protecting them.To make matters worse, the crisis-stricken Mexican economy is now more vulnerable to infiltration by the gangs than ever. Drug payoff money and drug-related jobs are tempting at a time when the country is heading into deep recession, its currency fallen more than 50 percent in value, explained Samuel Del Villar, a professor of public policy at El Colegio de Mexico. With the economic crisis, “The problem keeps getting more and more magnified.”Several former Mexican prosecutors last week went so far as to say that the drug trade was out of law enforcement’s reach because the drug lords had systematically bought protection from all levels of government.“If it continues like this (the traffickers) will be everywhere. Mexico will not be able to go forward, said Maria Teresa Jardi, a former state attorney general in Chihuahua, a state heavily infiltrated by drug gangs.In the last few years, Mexican drug lords have bought up major shares in industries ranging from Acapulco hotels to gyms and tourist agencies to discos, according to a U.S. official. In January, Mexican authorities shut down a hospital in Matamoros, saying it had been used to launder money for the vast Gulf Cartel.AP photoProtesters demonstrate in Mexico City on Monday against Mexico’s economic crisisthe border said they believed the Mexican drug cartels now laundered part of their profits through hundreds of currency exchange houses they controlled in the cities of Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Matamoros and Monterrey.In the last year, the drug gangs have bought up hundreds of properties along the Mexican-U.S. border to ease the shipment of the drugs, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials say.seized in Cali, Colombia, after making runs to Mexico.Law enforcement officials also cite an increase in drug shipments in cargo trucks crossing into the United States as evidence of the cartels’ increasing power.led the investigation that flagged Ruiz Massieu. He is also reputed to be investigating leads that three high-level assassinations in Mexico in the last two years may be linked to drug trafficking interests.The drug kings’ reach extends to the Mexican stock market, where they are believed to own publicly traded companies, the U.S. officialIn January, Mexican authorities shut down a hospital in Matamoros saying it had been used to launder money for the vast Gulf Cartel.Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials say the drug cartels have bribed thousands of police officers into silence and have built extraordinarily lavish lifestyles on the more than $30 billion in gross revenues U.S. officials estimate they take in each year.They say they suspect cartel ownership of some Mexican trucking lines. Investigators say 80 percent of all cocaine bound for the United States now moves through Mexico. Just last November they put that figure at 70 percent.The United States has joined Mexico in recent high-profile efforts to break the drug lords’ hold on Mexican society. Last week U.S. Customs agents seized more than $9 million in Texas bank accounts bearing the name of Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s former deputy attorney general, in a strong sign that he is being investigated for taking bribes from the country’s drug cartel. Ruiz Massieu is currently under arrest in New Jersey on charges that he entered the United States without declaring to customs officials the $40,000 in cash he was carrying.They buy “whatever money can buy,” one U.S. official said. “You’re talking about mansions, you’re talking about planes, you’re talking about cars, I mean, there’s just no limit.Mexican investigators and academics studying the drug problem say they have been impressed with the efforts of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon and his appointed attorney general, Antonio Lozano Gracia, to combat the problem in the three months they’ve been in office.But academics who have watched the country’s drug trade explode in the last few years say high-profile arrests and crop eradication efforts will do little to upend the illicit business as long as there are vast fortunes to be made.Officials on both sides ofAs evidence of the new strength acquired by the Mexican drug organizations, law enforcement officials cite the recent use of specially equipped Boeing 727 jets to fly tons of cocaine directly from Columbia to drop-off points in rural Mexico. In January, several jets wereZedillo fired every member of the nation’s Supreme Court and undertook a top to bottom cleansing of Mexico’s justice system almost immediately on taking office, they point out. And Lozano, the first Mexican cabinet minister from an opposition party in the country’s history,“As long as you have politicians involved, police involved, businesses involved, it’s going to be very tough, maybe not possible,” sad Maria Celia Toro, who as a professor of political science at El Colegio de Mexico is a close observer of the drug trade.American official says corruption’s a dagger buried in Mexico’s heartBy TRACEY EATON Dallas Morning NewsMEXICO CITY — Drug cartels have become so powerful in Mexico that they’re changing the nature of corruption, threatening entire institutions and infiltrating the political system, U.S. analysts say.Wealthy, connected cocaine traffickers are able to buy off, intimidate or kill just about anyone who stands in their way, drug agents said.“It’s no longer this old-time corruption that people understood,” said William Olson, former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters. “It’s a new kind of corruption that’s following a path right to the heart of the political system. To try to get i id of it, it’s like cutting out a lung.”Mexican-style corruption used to be little more than a casual system of favors and patronage, paying a traffic cop, for instance, giving government jobs to friends, or skimming funds from City Hall.But with billionaire cocaine traffickers paying the bribes, analysts said the cartels have expanded JJheir irfluence overnot only the police, courts and political system, but also the economy.While the full impact of drug money on the economy is uncertain, most agree that traffickers and the politicians who protect them sink billions of dollars every year into beachside resorts, the financial markets, shopping centers and other enterprises.Some analysts go as far as to suggest that a shifting of funds by major cartels in recent months deepened the economic crisis that hit Mexico in December.everything was good,” said Dan Fisk, a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “There’s been an institutional interest in not asking the tough questions about Mexico.”U.S. law enforcement authorities have worried about the extent of drug corruption in Mexico for years. Some said they told their superiors about it, but were mostly ignored.Analysts said many Washington politicians didn’t want to criticize Mexico for fear of jeopardizing the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Others quietly hoped that former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gor-tari would follow through on his promises to turn the country into a modern, just democracy.“We had invested so much in Salinas that we had to sayNow some members of Congress, caught up in the U.S.-led, multibillion-dollar bailout of Mexico’s ailing economy, are speaking out.“You’ve got to get tough,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif. “There’s a very fine line between being a nice guy and being a patsy.”One congressional inquiry has already begun. The Senate Banking Committee has asked the Drug Enforcement Agency, the CIA, the FBI and other agencies to provide intelligence information on alleged government corruption in Mexico. And the Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans hearings on Mexican drug trafficking by early sum-crusade against crime and proposed a complete reform of the judicial system shortly after taking office in December. And he’s had some stunning results.The former president’s brother, Raul Salinas de Gortari, has been arrested and charged with ordering the September 1994 murder of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a top politician.The victim’s brother, Mario Ruiz Massieu, a deputy attorney general in charge of investigating the murder, has also been charged. Authorities allege that he shielded Raul Salinas from arrest while piling up millions of dollars in wealth.Mexican diplomats said the Americans were overreacting. These are difficult times, they said, but the United States should have faith in the new Mexican president, Ernesto Zedillo.Under Zedillo’s leadership, investigators also have arrested a second gunman in the March 1994 assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the ruling party’s presidential candidate. And they are expected to uncover new theories to explain the May 1993 killing of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo.Zedillo, an unassuming economist, launched rf furiousJust how far Zedillo will go is uncertain, but current and former U.S. officials said they liked what they’d seen. -t€J§I1EEGET!RESUL1Call Din982-66982-66982-6CorFa546-89AuctiBIG AUCTtots of fumr TUESDAY. 8 : Sun Valley fi 812 N. 13th Harlingen 42SKen SoAuctions #Acceptirg furn Clt;
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Brownsville Herald
Brownsville, Texas, US
Tue, Mar 21, 1995
Page 18
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