OBAMA TAKING MONEY FROM A MEXICAN CRIMINAL IS NOT DIFFERENT THAN TAKING THE STAGGERING AMOUNT OF MONEY HE HAS FROM HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS, IS IT?
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-mexican-drug-cartels-his.html
MEXICO IS IN A STATE OF MELTDOWN DUE TO CORRUPTION. AMERICA WILL
FOLLOW.
MEXICANS UNDERSTAND CORRUPTION AND BREED HEAVILY IN ITS STENCH.
OBAMA HAS BEEN LISTED ON JUDICIAL WATCH’S TEN MOST CORRUPT, WHICH
HAS INCLUDED OTHER LA RAZA DEMS, SUCH AS FEINSTEIN, PELOSI, BOXER and REID,
MULTIPLE TIMES.
WHEN JUAN JOSE ROJAS CARDONA HANDED SOME DIRTY LOOT TO OBAMA, HE
KNEW HIS MAN! OBAMA HAS STOPPED THE DEPORTATION OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LA
RAZA CRIMINALS TO BUY THEIR VOTES. HE’S ALSO TURNED HIS ADMIN INTO THE MOST LA
RAZA INFESTED WHITE HOUSE IN HISTORY!
Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug
and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling
him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama’s re-election
campaign.
*
MEX DRUG CARTELS OPERATING IN OBAMA’S HOME TOWN
The nature of Alberto Cardona’s business is not exactly clear. On
campaign finance reports, he listed his employer as Tango Latin, a Chicago
company that seems to be connected to Tango Productions, a small video
production, marketing and photography studio that Carlos Cardona listed as his
employer.
NEW YORK TIMES
February
6, 2012
Obama to Return Major Donations Tied to
Fugitive
Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug
and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling
him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama’s re-election
campaign.
The casino owner, Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, known as Pepe, jumped
bail in Iowa in 1994 and disappeared, and has since been linked to violence and
corruption in Mexico. A State Department cable in 2009 said he was suspected of
orchestrating the assassination of a business rival and making illegal campaign
donations to Mexican officials.
When The New York
Times asked the Obama campaign early Monday about the Cardonas, officials said
they were unaware of the brother in Mexico. Later in the day, the campaign said
it was refunding the money raised by the family, which totaled more than
$200,000.
As recently as
January of last year, one of Mr. Cardona’s brothers in Chicago, Carlos Rojas
Cardona, arranged for the former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party to seek
a pardon from the governor for Pepe Cardona, according to prosecutors in that
state. None was forthcoming.
Last fall, Carlos
Cardona and another brother in Chicago, Alberto Rojas Cardona, began raising
money for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National
Committee. The Cardona brothers, who have no prior history of political
giving, appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the world of Democratic
fund-raising, Democratic activists said.
The money Alberto
Cardona raised put him in the upper tiers of fund-raisers known as bundlers,
according to a list released last month by the campaign. He and Carlos Cardona
each gave the maximum $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee, and a
lesser amount to a state victory fund. A sister, Leticia Rojas Cardona of
Tennessee, donated $13,000 to the national committee, and another relative in
Illinois gave $12,600, records show. There is no record of Pepe Cardona making
a donation.
Although the two
brothers live and work in Chicago, they maintain ties to Pepe Cardona in
Mexico. Alberto Cardona operates an advertising agency in Mexico that has
worked for political candidates backed by his brother, according to public
records and Mexican news reports. Public records also show that the domain name
for the Web site of a restaurant Pepe Cardona owns is registered to Alberto
Cardona.
Obama campaign
officials said most of the money raised by the Cardona brothers came from
themselves and other relatives, donations of about $200,000. In addition, the
campaign was identifying other donations, believed to total less than $100,000,
that was bundled from other people.
“On the basis of
the questions that have been raised, we will return the contributions from
these individuals and from any other donors they brought to the campaign,” said
Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign.
Pepe Cardona is
one of the largest players in Mexico’s violent and tumultuous casino trade. In
2007, he survived an assassination attempt that was attributed to members of
organized crime. The State Department
cable, which was part of the cache made public by WikiLeaks, said he was
suspected of illegally funneling $5 million into Mexican political campaigns in
2006.
Multiple messages
left for Alberto and Carlos Cardona over several days were not returned. A
sister-in-law, Sarah Westall of Minnesota, said in a telephone interview that
it would be wrong to tar other members of the family with the negative
publicity surrounding Pepe Cardona.
Ms. Westall, who
is married to another Cardona brother, Gabriel, said Alberto and Carlos took up
Democratic fund-raising because their extended family had long been involved in
helping the Latino community and because they supported the president. There
were no other reasons beyond those, she said. “I understand that it looks real
bad,” she said. “But the rest of the family are really good people. Pepe is
actually a good person too.”
Whatever the
family’s motivation, the president cannot pardon someone for state crimes. On
Monday, Democratic fund-raisers who have had encounters with Alberto and Carlos
Cardona expressed surprise upon learning about their family history. Manuel
Sanchez, a Chicago lawyer who is deeply involved in Latino outreach for the
Obama administration, said he first met them in December at a finance committee
meeting for the president’s campaign in Washington.
He said he had
been told that they were involved in “marketing and advertising.” They
impressed him as “very smart young guys who wanted to support the president,”
he said.
“I did get the
distinct impression that both of them are very well-to-do and successful in
their businesses,” Mr. Sanchez said, adding that he “had no idea” they had a
brother in Mexico or what his background was.
In Johnson
County, Iowa, the authorities are well acquainted with Pepe Cardona’s past.
One of nine
children of Mexican parents who grew up in Iowa, Pepe
Cardona, who was born in Mexico, was active in civil rights issues at the
University of Iowa and became president of the Student Senate. While at the
university in 1990, he was accused of misspending student government money, and
a year later he was criminally charged with defrauding associates in a
telemarketing company he started, according to court records.
He was sentenced
to five years in prison, and while free pending an appeal, he was arrested in
New Mexico on charges of trying to smuggle marijuana across the border, court
records show. He pleaded guilty to federal drug charges in 1994, but
disappeared while out on bail, later surfacing in Mexico.
In 1998, federal prosecutors obtained approval from a judge to
quash the drug indictment, wiping clean Pepe Cardona’s federal court record.
However, his current legal status in Iowa, where a county judge had ordered him
jailed in 1992, is more precarious.
On Monday, the
Johnson County attorney, Janet Lyness, said there was still an outstanding
warrant for his arrest on a probation violation charge. She said that at least
twice over the last four years, a lawyer approached the Iowa governor’s office
asking about a pardon for Pepe Cardona.
The last such
request came in the final days of the term of Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat, and
was filed by Gordon Fischer, a lawyer who is a former chairman of the Iowa
Democratic Party. In his pardon application, Mr. Fischer explained that he knew
Pepe Cardona from his days at the University of Iowa. Mr. Fischer declined to
comment on Monday, citing attorney-client privilege.
Ms. Lyness, also
a Democrat, said she had been told that the application had been initiated by
members of Pepe Cardona’s family in the United States. She opposed it, and it
was not granted.
“I can think of
few people who are less deserving of a pardon than Pepe Rojas-Cardona,” Ms.
Lyness wrote in her response to the pardon request, adding that it would be “a
travesty of justice.”
The first
campaign donations by Alberto and Carlos Cardona came shortly after news
articles revealing Pepe Cardona’s criminal past appeared in the United States
and Mexico last fall.
One of them, a
long exposé in September by a Mexican magazine, Proceso, chronicled Pepe
Cardona’s relatively swift rise to fortune and notoriety in Mexico after
fleeing the American authorities. He obtained Mexican gambling licenses, and
with help from investors in Louisiana, he started opening casinos in and around
Monterrey, eventually becoming known as Mexico’s “casino czar.”
The article
reported that Tango Media, an advertising company it said is owned by Alberto
Cardona, worked on the campaigns of politicians favored by Pepe Cardona in
communities where he owned casinos. It also said Carlos Cardona was involved in
one of Pepe Cardona’s business deals.
A review of
public records found that several of the Cardona brothers’ business activities
have intersected in the United States and in Mexico, sharing common addresses
and doing work for one another’s companies. For instance, another brother,
Arturo Rojas Cardona — Pepe’s main business partner in his casino and
entertainment businesses — has an architecture and design firm that has done
work for his brothers in the United States, including Alberto Cardona.
The nature of Alberto Cardona’s business is not exactly clear. On
campaign finance reports, he listed his employer as Tango Latin, a Chicago
company that seems to be connected to Tango Productions, a small video
production, marketing and photography studio that Carlos Cardona listed as his
employer.
A check of public
records found that Alberto Cardona is the registered owner of domain names for
the Web sites of Tango Media and 40 West, a restaurant owned by Pepe Cardona, both
in Mexico.
Ms. Westall, the
sister-in-law, said she did not know what sort of dealings Alberto and Carlos
had with Pepe Cardona, but she added that it would not be unusual for large
families to help each other in their business activities.
“If someone in
the family does Web design, and Pepe needed someone to do that, he would hire
that person first,” she said. “In Mexico, that’s the way it works.”
*
INVESTORS.com
Mexico: Where Is Your Shame?
Posted 07/29/2010 06:58 PM ET
At a demonstration Wednesday in Mexico City against
Arizona's law.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Immigration: Mexico's government gloated triumphantly after
a federal judge's injunction blocked Arizona's immigration law. But it's no
victory for Mexico. In fact, Mexico's leaders ought to be mortified.
As radical immigration activists crowed with glee and the
Obama administration claimed victory, Mexico's government joined the applause.
Calling Judge Susan Bolton's injunction Wednesday "a
step in the right direction," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa
declared: "The government of Mexico would like to express its recognition
for the determination demonstrated by the federal government of the United
States and the actions of the civil organizations that organized lawsuits
against the SB 1070 law."
In reality, it ought to be ashamed. Supposedly framed as an
issue of federal power pre-empting state power, it's hardly Mexico's business.
But Mexico made a big show of saying its interest was in protecting its
nationals from the dreadful racism of Arizona that its own citizens, curiously
enough, keep fleeing to.
Espinosa said her government was busy collecting data on
civil rights violations and her department had issued an all-out travel warning
to Mexican nationals about Arizona.
That's where Mexico's hypocrisy is just too much.
First, Mexico
encourages illegal immigration to the U.S. Oh, it says it doesn't, but it
prints comic book guides for would-be illegal immigrants and provides ID cards
for illegals once they get here. In Arizona alone, Mexico keeps five consulates
busy.
That's not out of love for its own citizens, but because
Mexicans send cash back to Mexico that helps finance the government.
Instead of selling its wasteful state-owned oil company or
getting rid of red tape to create jobs in Mexico, Mexico spends the hard
currency from remittances. It fails to look at why its citizens leave.
According to the Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal
2010 Index of Economic Freedom, Mexico's big problem is — no shock —
government corruption, where it ranks below the world
average.
That's where Mexico's cartels come in.
Mexico's
encouragement of illegal immigration undercuts its valiant war against its
smuggling cartels. The cartels' prowess and firepower have made them the only
ones who can smuggle effectively across the border. U.S. law enforcers say they
now control human-smuggling on our southern border.
Feed them immigrants and they grow more cash-rich — and
right now, immigrant smuggling is about a third of the cartels' income.
Mass graves and car bombings are signs of criminal
organizations getting bigger, and more powerful. Juarez, which has lost 5,000
people this year, bleeds because cartels fight over not just who gets the drug
routes, but who gets the illegal-immigrant smuggling routes, too.
Aside from the cartel mayhem in Mexico, the bodies are
piling up in the Arizona desert and U.S. Border Patrol rescues of abandoned
illegals left to die have risen.
It's not the desert's
fault, and it's certainly not Uncle Sam's fault, as activists claim. No, it's
the fact that Mexicans are encouraged to emigrate. Criminal cartels don't fear
abandoning their human cargo in the desert, as long as Mexico does nothing and
blames Uncle Sam.
Hearing Mexico's government now cheer the Arizona ruling,
which will only encourage more illegal immigration, gives the country's regime
a pretty inhuman face.
If Mexico had any decency, it would do all it could to
discourage illegal immigration and keep a respectful silence about Arizona. (MEXICO IS FULLY AWARE THAT OBAMA HAS SUED ARIZONA ON BEHALF OF HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE!)
It needs U.S. support
for its war on cartels. Instead of insulting American citizens, Mexico should
confront directly the reasons why its people are so desperate to leave, and do
all in its power to destroy the cartels that are slowly killing the nation.
That includes defunding the murderous gangs by halting illegal immigration.
*
400,00 MEXICAN CRIMINALS GET "PARDONS" FROM OBAMA!
THE FIGURE
ON MEXICAN GANGS IN OUR BORDERS IS DATED. CNN PUTS THE NUMBER AT ONE MILLION.
THE MEXICAN
DRUG CARTELS NOW OPERATE IN 2,500 AMERICAN CITIES. DESPITE THIS, OBAMA AND HIS
LA RAZA ADMINISTRATION HAS REPEATEDLY LIED ABOUT OUR BORDER SECURITY, EVEN AS
HE OPENS THE BORDER FOR MORE ILLEGALS.
*
*
Lou Dobbs
Tonight
And there are some 800,000
gang members in this country: That’s more than the combined number of troops in
our Army and Marine Corps. These gangs have become one of the principle ways to
import and distribute drugs in the United States. Congressman David Reichert
joins Lou to tell us why those gangs are growing larger and stronger, and why
he’s introduced legislation to eliminate the top three international drug
gangs.
*
*
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/feds-allow-illegal-aliens-to-cross.html
*
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/feds-allow-illegal-aliens-to-cross.html
*
WHY DOES FEINSTEIN,
BOXER, PELOSI WANT I.C.E TO LEAVE ILLEGAL CRIMINALS ALONE? IS IT BECAUSE THEY
CONSIDER THEM VOTERS?
CERTAINLY HISPANDERING
BARACK OBAMA DOES! HE KNOWS HE’S LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SO MANY TIMES THAT
ONLY HIS BIG BANKSTER MONEY, AND THE VOTES OF ILLEGALS WILL CON HIM INTO
ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF CON JOBS!
*
HOW MANY ILLEGAL CRIMINALS ARE ON THE PROWL?
400,000 and they’re just waiting for OBAMA’S LA
RAZA AMNESTY!
There are currently over 400,000 unaccounted for
illegal alien criminals with outstanding deportation orders. Those are just the
ones apprehended. At least one fourth of these are hard core criminals. Nobody
knows how many more there are, but they are numerous and roaming your
neighborhoods, preying on you and your family. Read more about it here.
Many of these heinous crimes are against
children. How many children are being molested, raped, and murdered by illegal
aliens? Nobody knows for sure but the numbers are staggering. To give you some
idea of the prevalence of the crime, peruse the ICE Public
Information News Releases.
In case you are interested, that is 250 illegal
alien child molesters. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
When we talk about the costs to secure our
borders, we need to ask "How many crimes against children is acceptable
collateral damage?" Isn't that what it is all about? Cheap lettuce versus
molested, raped and murdered children - a cost/benefit tradeoff.
Occasionally, the Federal Government decides to
actually do something about some of the more violent illegal alien criminals -
after they are already here and have committed mayhem! Operation Predator evolved out of ICE's mission to find and deport
illegal aliens with the more heinous criminal records. The majority of the
arrests under Operation Predator - roughly 85% - involved foreign nationals in
this country whose child sex crimes made them removable from the United States.
By matching immigration databases with state Megan's law directories, ICE
agents have arrested more than 1,800 registered sex offenders.
Digressing for a moment, what the hell was a
convicted, illegal alien sex offender even doing out of jail or not immediately
deported – even if 63% do come right back - let alone roaming around the
neighborhoods while on a registry! Has the judicial system in this country gone
insane?
In any case, Operation Predator began on July 9,
2003, and resulted in 6,085 child predator arrests throughout the country - an
average of roughly 250 arrests per month and eight arrests per day. While
arrests have been made in every state, the most have occurred in these states:
Arizona (207), California (1,578), Florida (255), Illinois (282), Michigan
(153), Minnesota (190), New Jersey (423), New York (367), Oregon (148) and
Texas (545).
While Operation Predator was a noble effort and
ICE is to be commended, it only made a small dent in the criminal activity and
number of horrific crimes being committed by illegal alien child sexual
predators.
It is worth noting that some pedophile statistics report that each
pedophile molests average of 148 children. If so, that could be as many as
900,580 victims from just the 6,085 illegal alien predators that were caught.
Regardless, how many children being molested is acceptable collateral damage?
When visiting any of the links and sites, keep
in mind that nobody is tracking and reporting the crimes on a national basis
and these are just the tip of the iceberg.
While it is a fact that most illegal aliens are
law abiding, except for breaking immigration laws, it is also a fact that a
significant percentage of illegal aliens have no respect for the rule of law
and our legal customs. Many come with anti-American attitudes and philosophies
that are totally alien to our culture, a subject addressed later in this paper.
The end result is an ever-growing lawlessness among large portions of the
illegal alien communities. It only makes sense that illegal alien criminals
come to the United States - this is where the money is and our jails are a
whole lot nicer than what they have in their home countries.
As previously noted, this report does not go
into the property crimes being committed by illegal aliens. However, like the
activities of other equal opportunity criminals, many property crimes are drug
related, an activity that many illegal aliens, especially illegal alien gangs,
are involved in. While violent crimes against one's person are the most
serious, if your identity or car is stolen by an illegal alien you won't be too
happy about it.
As a small example of property crimes, in 2003,
according to the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles, 57,600 cars were stolen
in Phoenix alone. The owner losses are estimated to exceed $864 million. Most
of the stolen cars ended up in Mexico and were never recovered. How many of
those cars were stolen by illegal alien criminals versus resident criminals is
unknown but you can rest assured that illegal aliens had a large part of it..
*
EXPORTING POVERTY... we take MEXICO'S 38 million
poor, illiterate, criminal and frequently pregnant
........ where can we send AMERICA'S poor?
*
*
Mexico seeks to fill drug war gap with focus on dirty money
The evolving anti-laundering campaign could change the tone of the Mexican
government's battle by striking at the heart of the cartels' financial empire,
analysts say.
By Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
November 27, 2011
Reporting from Mexico City
Tainted drug money runs like whispered rumors
all over Mexico's economy — in gleaming high-rises in beach resorts such as
Cancun, in bustling casinos in Monterrey, in skyscrapers and restaurants in
Mexico City that sit empty for months. It seeps into the construction sector,
the night-life industry, even political campaigns.
Piles of greenbacks, enough to fill dump trucks, are transformed into gold
watches, showrooms full of Hummers, aviation schools, yachts, thoroughbred
horses and warehouses full of imported fabric.
Officials here say the tide of laundered money could reach as high as $50
billion, a staggering sum equal to about 3% of Mexico's legitimate economy, or
more than all its oil exports or spending on prime social programs.
Mexican leaders often trumpet their deadly crackdown against drug traffickers
as an all-out battle involving tens of thousands of troops and police,
high-profile arrests and record-setting narcotics seizures. The 5-year-old
offensive, however, has done little to attack a chief source of the cartels'
might: their money.
Even President Felipe Calderon, who sent the army into the streets to chase
traffickers after taking office in 2006, an offensive that has seen 43,000
people die since, concedes that Mexico has fallen short in attacking the
financial strength of organized crime.
"Without question, we have been at fault," Calderon said during a
meeting last month with drug-war victims. "The truth is that the existing
structures for detecting money-laundering were simply overwhelmed by
reality."
Experts say the unchecked flow of dirty money feeds a widening range of
criminal activity as cartels branch into other enterprises, such as producing
and trading in pirated merchandise.
"All this generates more crime," said Ramon Garcia Gibson, a former
compliance officer at Citibank and an expert in money-laundering. "At the
end of the day, this isn't good for anyone."
Officials on both sides of the border have begun taking tentative steps to stem
the flow of dirty money. For Instance, last year Calderon proposed
anti-laundering legislation, after earlier announcing restrictions on cash
transactions in Mexico that used U.S. dollars.
The evolving anti-laundering campaign could change the tone of the government's
military-led crime crusade by striking at the heart of the cartels' financial
empire, analysts say. But the effort will have to overcome a longtime lack of
political will and poor coordination among Mexican law enforcement agencies
that have only aggravated the complexity of the task at hand now.
"If you don't take away their property, winning this war is
impossible," said Sen. Ricardo Garcia Cervantes of the Senate security
committee and Calderon's conservative National Action Party. "You are not
going to win this war with bullets."
++
The good news for Mexican and Colombian traffickers is that drug sales in the
United States generate enormous income, nearly all of it in readily spendable
cash. The bad news is that this creates a towering logistical challenge:
getting the proceeds back home to pay bills, buy supplies — from guns to
chemicals to trucks — and build up the cartels' empires without detection.
Laundering allows traffickers to disguise the illicit earnings as legitimate
through any number of transactions, such as cash transfers, big-ticket
purchases, currency exchanges and deposits.
Much of that money still makes its way back into Mexico the old-fashioned way:
in duffels stuffed into the trunks of cars. But Mexican drug traffickers are
among the world's most savvy entrepreneurs, and launderers have proved nimble
in evading authorities' efforts to catch them, adopting a host of new
techniques to move the ill-gotten wealth.
For example, Mexican traffickers are taking advantage of blind spots in
monitoring the nearly $400 billion of legal commerce between the two countries.
The so-called trade-based laundering allows crime groups to disguise millions
of dollars in tainted funds as ordinary merchandise — say, onions or precious
metals, as they are trucked across the border.
In one case, the merchandise of choice was tons of polypropylene pellets used
for making plastic. Exports of the product from the United States to Mexico
appeared legitimate, but law enforcement officials say that by declaring a
slightly inflated value, traders were able to hide an average of more than $1
million a month, until suspicious banks shut down the operation.
The inventive ploys even include gift cards, such as the kind you get your
nephew for graduation. A drug-trafficking foot soldier simply loads up a
prepaid card with dollars and walks across the border without having to declare
sums over the usual $10,000 reporting requirement, thus carrying a car trunk's
worth of cargo in his wallet.
Tainted cash is almost everywhere. In western Mexico, a minor-league soccer
club known as the Raccoons was part of a sprawling cross-border empire —
including car dealerships, an avocado export firm, hotels and restaurants —
that U.S. officials said was used by suspect Wenceslao Alvarez to launder money
for the Gulf cartel. Alvarez was arrested by Mexican authorities in 2008 in a
rare blow against laundering and remains in prison while fighting the charges.
Even the most unlikely street-corner businesses may be used to scrub money. A
pair of tanning salons in the western state of Jalisco were among 225
properties seized from drug suspect Sandra Avila Beltran, the so-called Queen
of the Pacific and one of the few women allegedly to reach upper cartel
echelons.
Avila, arrested in 2007, is still behind bars on the money-laundering charges
as she also fights extradition to the U.S., but she has been exonerated of
organized-crime and weapons charges.
The salons, with their all-cash, high-volume turnover, were allegedly used to
hide drug money. The chain, called Electric Beach, has outlets all over Mexico
City.
++
Mexico's efforts against money-laundering are hobbled by staff shortages, a
failure to investigate adequately and skimpy laws that have exempted from
scrutiny a number of industries often used to clean dirty money, independent
assessments by financial experts and academics have found.
Javier Laynez Potisek, Mexico's fiscal prosecutor, lamented during a September
conference on money-laundering, "Our system allows someone to come in with
a suitcase full of money and buy four armored pickups for 600,000 pesos [about
$42,000], and we don't have a minimum requirement to identify or report
them."
A 2009 report issued by the Financial Action Task Force, an international anti-money-laundering
agency, noted that Mexican authorities had won only 25 convictions for
money-laundering in the two decades it has been a crime. From the beginning of
2009 to mid-2010, as overall drug-war arrests soared, prosecutors won
convictions of only 37 people for money-laundering.
Part of the problem is that only Mexico's Finance Ministry has had access to
financial data crucial to potential money-laundering inquiries, and prosecutors
have not been allowed to open their own money-laundering investigations without
a complaint from finance officials.
There is also stubborn resistance among those who profit from their role as
middlemen for big transactions.
One such group is notaries, who in Mexico have a function much like attorneys
in the U.S. They handle nearly all real estate transactions and have battled a
proposal that would require them to report how each purchase was paid for.
Notaries say launderers would probably respond by skipping the paperwork
altogether when buying cars and houses, only adding to the black-market
economy.
"The only thing that worries us notaries is that [the proposed reporting
requirements] would create an alternative market … that brings benefits to no
one," said Hector Galeano, finance secretary of Mexico's notaries association.
Some observers suggest that one reason previous Mexican governments were slow
to attack money-laundering was fear of harming the rest of the economy.
Edgardo Buscaglia, a scholar who studies organized crime, estimates that in a
nation where three-quarters of all transactions are cash, drug money has
infiltrated 78% of the sectors constituting the formal economy.
In Sinaloa, the prosperous coastal state considered the cradle of the Mexican
narcotics trade, economist Guillermo Ibarra estimates that drug money sustains
nearly a fifth of the region's economy, from fancy subdivisions dotted with
"narco-mansions" to vast farms.
Sinaloa is a well-known produce grower; in fact, its license plate features a
tomato. But it would take an awful lot of tomatoes to account for the kind of
over-the-top opulence on display in the state.
++
The moves to turn the tide in dirty money have generally taken place out of
public view. But they could mark an important shift in the drug-war strategy.
A year ago, a small group of Mexican officials and U.S. counterparts met and
selected six money-laundering cases to investigate jointly in an experimental
offensive. U.S. agents here say the first arrests, involving a network in the
northern border state of Chihuahua, could come by year's end.
Separately, U.S. Customs officials familiar with sophisticated money-laundering
techniques have begun training Mexican tax inspectors who will be assigned to
ferret out launderers. In addition, nearly 500 individuals and Mexican companies,
from mines to milk producers, have been placed on a U.S. Treasury Department
blacklist for alleged laundering activities.
And the Mexican Congress, after years of government inaction on the issue, is
weighing a series of legislative proposals based on Calderon's anti-laundering
package that would make it more difficult to cleanse dirty money. In the
meantime, the restrictions on the use of U.S. cash in Mexico appear to be
altering the flow of drug-tainted dollars for the first time, officials on both
sides of the border say.
Under the proposed legislation, a specialized unit added to the attorney
general's office, with advice from U.S. officials, would be authorized to take
the lead in money-laundering cases and inspect a wide variety of businesses in
search of illicit profits.
In addition, the government nearly a year ago replaced the Finance
Ministry official in charge of such cases with a veteran Washington-based
diplomat, Jose Alberto Balbuena, who had spent many months working with U.S.
financial officials and is said to have a better grasp of what's at stake and a
good working relationship with top prosecutors.
To date, Mexican reporting requirements have applied only to banks. Under
legislation approved by the Senate last year and now before the lower Chamber
of Deputies, a range of other industries would also be required to report large
cash or suspicious transactions using unexplained funds.
These include real estate, car dealerships, betting parlors, art galleries,
notaries, and, possibly, religious institutions. Mirroring "know your
customer" regulations in the banking world, the rules would require
disclosure of cash purchases for more than 200,000 pesos, or about $14,000, of
numerous goods and place a cap of 1 million pesos, or about $70,000, on cash
purchases of real estate.
Law enforcement experts say the proposed legislation could fill a yawning gap
in Mexico's crime fight.
"It's going to counteract the financial and economic power of the
criminals," said Ricardo Gluyas, a professor at the National Institute of
Criminal Sciences, which trains Mexico's organized-crime prosecutors. "The
new law has teeth. It covers a broad spectrum."
One potentially powerful tool, an asset-forfeiture law that allows authorities
to seize property and accounts of traffickers and launderers, was approved by
Congress in 2008. A similar law made a big difference in crime fights in
Colombia and Italy, allowing authorities in those countries to confiscate and
resell properties of drug traffickers and Mafiosi.
"Without firing a shot, you can generate a lot more results by seizing the
fortunes of the big capos," Gluyas said.
But critics say the Mexican asset-forfeiture law threatens the due-process
rights of owners. So far, it has been little used: Courts had approved only two
cases by late this summer, with more than a dozen pending.
Perhaps more than any other measure, the government's move last year to
restrict bank deposits of U.S. cash appears to have slowed the entry of dollars
to Mexico's financial system. Bank-account holders were no longer allowed to
deposit more than $4,000 a month.
In response, traffickers and their launderers are shifting tactics, including
keeping money in the United States, officials say. And U.S. officials say that
since Mexico announced the new rules, more money appears to be going elsewhere,
especially to the Caribbean and Guatemala, where officials have detected a
surge in circulating U.S. bank notes.
"That's the big question," Balbuena said. "Where is the
money?"
A possible explanation can perhaps be gleaned from an Oct. 5 incident: Customs
inspectors in Tijuana stopped an armored car full of plastic bags stuffed with
$915,000 in cash. There was no documentation for the money, law enforcement
sources familiar with the discovery said.
But it wasn't headed into Mexico. It was headed north, into San Diego.
BUT THE PROBLEM IS… criminal
banksters like LA RAZA DONORS WELLS FARGO are servicing the MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL
as fast as they illegally open bank accounts for illegals!
“Officials said stemming the
flow of this cash is essential if Mexico and the United
States hope to disrupt powerful transnational criminal organizations that are
using their wealth to corrupt, terrorize and kill.”
HEY, ANYONE ACTUALLY BELIEVE FOX IS NOT IN ON MEX DRUG
CARTEL MONEY? HE’S A FREAKING MEX!
Wells Fargo, which
owns Wachovia, immediately entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and
paid the federal government $160 million in fines.
Several other U.S. banks have also been discovered flouting
money-laundering laws.
No wonder former Mexican president Vicente Fox, a conservative businessman, is
urging his country to legalize the production, sale and
distribution of drugs
"as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system
that allows cartels to earn
huge profits."
Stepped-up
efforts by U.S., Mexico fail to stem flow of drug money south
By
William Booth and Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 25, 2010; 7:12 PM
LAREDO,
TEX. - Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and truckloads of
baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug cartels are moving tens of billions of
dollars in profits south across the border each year, a river of dirty money
that has overwhelmed U.S. and Mexican customs agents.
Officials said stemming the
flow of this cash is essential if Mexico and the United
States hope to disrupt powerful transnational criminal organizations that are
using their wealth to corrupt, terrorize and kill.
Despite
unprecedented efforts to thwart the traffickers, U.S. and Mexican authorities
are seizing no more than 1 percent of the cash, according to an analysis by The
Washington Post based on figures provided by the two governments.
The
major Mexican drug organizations write that off as the cost of doing business -
losing a percentage far smaller than the fees for an ordinary wire transfer or
ATM withdrawal, Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials said.
The
Obama administration recently proposed a $600 million surge in spending and
personnel, including additional gamma-ray scanners and money-sniffing dogs, as
part of an intensifying effort to capture the dollars going from U.S. drug
consumers to Mexican mafias.
The
drug traffickers and their Colombian suppliers smuggle $20 billion to $25
billion in U.S. bank notes across the southwest border annually as they seek to
circumvent banking regulations and the suspicions aroused by large cash
deposits, studies by federal officials, regulators and academics show.
"If
we fail to curtail these money flows, the confrontation with organized crime
will generate more violence and more corruption," Carlos Pascual, the U.S.
ambassador to Mexico, said at a border conference in El Paso this month.
Most
of the money is smuggled in plastic-wrapped bricks of $20 bills. Often the bank
notes retain the sticky residue or fine powder generated by the marijuana,
cocaine and methamphetamine sold to the most voracious consumers in the world.
"Cash
is the ultimate challenge for us," John Arvanitis, chief of financial
operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in an interview.
"It moves so rapidly, so fluidly. It crosses borders. It moves in bulk. It
is stored in warehouses. It is moved into business. They have multiple,
multiple options. They can hide a million dollars in a tractor-trailer, or they
can carry it across the border in a handbag."
Since
the two countries pledged to bolster joint operations in March 2009 and began
searching more vehicles heading south, customs agents have seized record
amounts of cash - not only in vehicles but also hidden in children's toys,
loaves of bread and body cavities.
But
authorities are barely making a dent in the cartel profits. U.S. agents
captured $85 million in illicit cash along the southwest border last year,
according to the Department of Homeland Security. Mexican inspectors have
seized $31 million in suspicious cash at all ports of entry into the country
over the past three years, according to figures provided by the Mexican customs
agency. In two years of undercover operations targeting Mexican cartels in the
United States, the DEA seized $216 million, although it is unclear how much of
that would have been smuggled south.
"We
see mostly small seizures, in small denominations. It doesn't mean that much to
them," said a senior Mexican official who investigates financial crimes,
speaking on the condition of anonymity because of security protocols. "To
really hurt the criminal organizations, we would have to be confiscating much,
much more."
Asked
how much more, the official said, "a billion dollars."
T.J.
Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, said seizing
cash in southbound traffic is extremely difficult.
"Throw
a backpack of cash over the fence into Mexico, and what are we going to
do?" he said. "Charge someone with littering in a foreign
country?"
Mexican
officials say a greater percentage of drug profits remain in the United States
than U.S. officials acknowledge. Former attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora
said that, based on the U.S. notes Mexican banks return to the United States,
about $10 billion "does not have an explanation and could be attributed to
the flow of drug trafficking money."
That
figure does not include the billions never deposited in Mexican banks but
quickly smuggled farther south - to Central America, to pay transport costs,
and to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, to purchase more cocaine.
'No paper
trail'
Cash
smuggled across the border is a leading source of foreign currency in Mexico,
surpassed only by petroleum sales and about equal to the dollars earned from
tourism and official remittances from Mexicans working in the United States.
"There's
no paper trail when you smuggle $400,000 or $500,000 over the border in a
hidden compartment on one car," said David Gaddis, deputy chief of
operations for the DEA.
U.S.
bank notes are easily spent in Mexico, where 67 percent of commercial
transactions are made with cash - often dollars - as opposed to 21 percent in
the United States.
Since
late 2006, when President Felipe Caldern launched his U.S.-backed military-led
offensive against the traffickers, police and soldiers have confiscated $411
million in U.S. currency but only $23 million in Mexican pesos, according to
Mexico's intelligence service.
In
the United States, cash from the wholesale distribution of heroin, cocaine,
methamphetamine and marijuana is consolidated in several key cities, including
New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area,
before it moves south.
"What
we are seeing is the professionalization of the movement of bulk cash,"
said an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of security protocols. "We are seeing
specialists in money movement. That's all they do. They prefer to lose drugs
versus money because drugs are so much easier to replace."
ICE
agents said cartels pay couriers about 2 or 3 percent to smuggle cash, far more
than they lose to law enforcement.
At the
crossing
At
the busy border crossing in Laredo, U.S. customs agents search hundreds of
southbound vehicles a day. Pickups and vans filled with household goods bought
in the United States slow to a stop as agents ask the occupants whether they
are carrying weapons, ammunition or more than $10,000 in cash. Almost everyone
says no.
Many
cars are just waved through. Others are briskly inspected. The officers tap on
the vehicle panels with rubber mallets, searching for hidden compartments; open
trunks and glove boxes; use mirrors to examine the undercarriage; hold a
density meter next to the gas tank; and pop open the hood and inspect the
running engine.
"We've
seen hidden compartments in oil pans, with cars running on two quarts of oil
instead of five," said Gene Garza, director of the Port of Laredo for U.S.
Customs and Border Protection.
If
agents detect anything suspicious - if a car with Arizona plates has no bugs on
its windshield or a woman who claims to be the driver's wife looks nervous -
the vehicle is inspected a second time, with cash-sniffing dogs. The vehicle
might then be scanned by X-ray machines and disassembled.
In
a typical seizure here last month, 50 bundles containing $607,629 were found in
a spare tire of a Ford pickup. A few days earlier, $506,057 was discovered in a
false compartment of a car's front bumper. The drivers face charges of cash
smuggling, with a typical prison sentence of a year or two if convicted.
At
the Laredo port alone, 22,000 cars cross into Mexico every day, plus 12,000
pedestrians and 6,000 tractor-trailers. They all can't be searched, officials
say, and $1 million in $100 bank notes could almost fit in a shoe box.
Once
the couriers cross, the risk of being caught is even slimmer, even as Mexico
tries to overhaul its customs agency with help from the $1.6 billion in U.S.
aid in the anti-narcotics Merida Initiative. Mexico has fired more than 1,000
customs agents and hired 2,300 since 2007, doubling their base salaries in an
effort to ward off corruption. Inspectors are subjected to lie-detector tests,
job rotations and monitoring by surveillance cameras.
But
former agents say drug cartels continue to corrupt and intimidate inspectors.
In Ciudad Juarez, across the river from El Paso, more than 30 agents have
resigned in recent months after several co-workers were killed.
In
Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican customs official said his inspectors have seized
"maybe a million dollars" in the past year.
"It's
not enough," said the senior officer, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because of security concerns. "They keep telling us to find more
and more, but it's very hard."
*
HEY, ANYONE ACTUALLY BELIEVE FOX IS NOT IN ON MEX DRUG
CARTEL MONEY? HE’S A FREAKING MEX!
Wells Fargo, which
owns Wachovia, immediately entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and
paid the federal government $160 million in fines.
Several other U.S. banks have also been discovered flouting
money-laundering laws.
No wonder former Mexican president Vicente Fox, a conservative businessman, is
urging his country to legalize the production, sale and
distribution of drugs
"as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system
that allows cartels to earn
huge profits."
Bloody Mexico drug war boosts U.S. gun shops, banks
Juan Gonzalez - News
Friday, August 20th 2010, 4:00 AM
Romero/ReutersMexican military has spent billions of
dollars fighting endless drug war, with little to show
but profits for banks and gun dealers in U.S.
They found the body of Edelmiro Cavazos
on a dirt road on the outskirts of Santiago,
a popular tourist spot near Monterrey,
Mexico.
The 38-year-old, U.S.-educated mayor of
Santiago had been shot execution-style,
hands tied behind his back, head bound
with tape.
Cavazos, whose body was found
Wednesday, was the fifth Mexican mayor
gunned down in the past two years - the
latest high-profile victim in a nation that is
bleeding to death from its War on Drugs.
The mayhem in Mexico has gotten so bad
that President Felipe Calderon launched an
unprecedented public debate and political
summit on ways to end the war, possibly
by legalizing drugs.
The reason Mexico's politicians are
desperate for peace is simple.
More people are dying each day from the
bullets and bombs of drug traffickers in
their country than are being killed in the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
In the border city of Juarez, the epicenter
of the violence, 60 residents were gunned
down between Friday and Monday.
Since December 2006, 28,000 Mexicans
have been murdered, including more than
2,000 police and security officials.
Drug gangs have resorted to car bombs,
kidnappings and have
even blockaded
wealthy neighborhoods of Monterrey in
spectacular displays of force.
The escalating carnage is a direct result of
Calderon's decision, shortly after his
election in 2006, to station 45,000 soldiers
and police on the country's streets to
combat the cartels.
Calderon's military surge was backed by
more than $1.2 billion in drug war aid from
former President Bush, and by several
hundred million more from the Obama
administration.
Although Mexican officials have captured or
killed scores of drug lords and seized tons
of drugs, the violence and the trafficking
continue to mushroom.
The country's tourism is dying, its industry
is suffering and thousands have fled
violence-plagued border cities like Tijuana
, Matamoros and Juarez.
Meanwhile, two industries in the U.S. are
flourishing from Mexico's tragedy.
More than 7,000 gun shops have sprouted
on the U.S. side of the border, and their
owners seem not to care where the
merchandise goes. Three-quarters of the
84,000 weapons, including high-powered
assault rifles, that Mexican officials have
seized since 2006, originated in the U.S.
Then there are the banks.
On March 12, federal prosecutors in Miami
charged Wachovia Bank with repeatedly
failing to report possible money-laundering
activity by money-transfer firms from
Mexico that used the bank.
Some of the more than $370billion wired to
Wachovia from Mexico bought planes here
that were used to transport drugs.
Wells Fargo, which
owns Wachovia,
immediately entered
into a deferred
prosecution agreement
and paid the
federal government
$160 million in fines.
Several other U.S. banks have also been
discovered flouting money-laundering laws.
No wonder former Mexican president
Vicente Fox, a conservative businessman, is
urging his country to legalize the
production, sale and distribution of drugs
"as a strategy to weaken and break the
economic system that allows cartels to earn
huge profits."