Español: PRI Asks Mexican Government for Explanations Regarding Cartels

Exige el PRI a SG y SRE explicar presuntos nexos entre DEA y cárteles

Rosa Elvira Vargas - La Jornada - Mexico, D.F.
Publicado: 06/12/2011 16:14

México, DF. La presidenta interina del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) exigió la comparecencia de los titulares de Relaciones Exteriores, Patricia Espinosa, y de Gobernación, Alejandro Poiré, para que expliquen a la sociedad mexicana de manera contundente lo relacionado con el presunto tráfico de armas y el lavado de dinero que, se ha revelado, realizan en México agentes de la Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA, por sus siglas en inglés) de los Estados Unidos.

Indicó que las respuestas obtenidas hasta hoy sobre los operativos Rápido y furioso, Receptor abierto y el banco Wachovia, así como los aviones no tripulados, “no nos dejan satisfechos. El asunto no se debe de tomar a la ligera, dado lo delicado del tema”.  ...MAS

The Sadness of Mexico

Siege is a good word to describe Mexico these days.  Ask anyone who has relatives living there.  Monterrey is a horror movie with dead bodies swinging from over passes so often that all the children of the city must have a permanent case of PTSD.  The villages in the mountains of San Luis Potosi are all controlled by narco families.  Michoacan has a new narco government called "La Familia" that has societal rules that keeps things in order.  People trying to drive from Laredo or Reynosa towards Monterrey are stopped - told to pay money (usually $200) or lose their cars.  If they drive a nice truck it is often taken away.

There are many more stories like this.  Its hard to say what part of the country is safe these days.  Unfortunately its not safe to dwell too long on these stories - at least not in public...

One more thing.  The new bill introduced to Congress allowing people receive VISAS if they purchase an expensive house may be a response to the current problem in Mexico.  Many of those who can afford to leave are desperate to move ---  Its not very fair.  There are millions of poor who are trapped inside the violence.

MTH

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Postscript - Los Angeles Times

Is Mexico 'under siege'?

Drug-related violence has spread to many formerly peaceful areas of the country.

October 22, 2011

Since June 2008, The Times has been reporting on the drug-related violence on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border...
...All the placid tourist trips into the back roads of Yucatan or Baja do little to dispel that truth. Those areas are exceptions solely because they no longer lie in the drug trade routes (the Caribbean and Pacific routes have shifted). But drug violence is no longer a "fringe" or "border" state problem in Mexico: Interior states that never experienced this level of violence before include much of central Mexico, from Michoacan up through Nuevo Leon. And violence has entrenched itself in Veracruz state, on the east coast. It's not just border states. It's pandemic.  MORE

Deadly Travel for Migrants Going Through Mexico

Migrants run Mexican gauntlet to make leap of faith to US

London Guardian

Massacre in Tamaulipas by Zetas drugs cartel fails to stem tide of Central Americans risking el brinco – the jump across Mexico

• Rory Carroll in Flores and Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 June 2011 18.49 BST

"About 300,000 migrants pass through Mexico each year, the vast majority Central Americans, but keeping track of them is impossible, said Flora Reynosa, head of a state office in Guatemala City tasked with defending migrants' human rights. Kidnapping had become a plague, she said.

Families trek to Reynosa's little office to supply names of missing relatives. That morning a father had registered the disappearance of a son who left in February, with no word since."...more

In Spanish: Questions about Mexico's Real Objective in Narco War

La guerra de Calderón contra el narco es una farsa, asevera el obispo Raúl Vera 

Destaca esfuerzos de campaña de ONG para detener las agresiones a los indocumentados

Fernando Camacho Servín

Periódico La Jornada - Mexico City
Domingo 19 de junio de 2011, p. 12

A diferencia de otras iniciativas similares, la campaña Por el derecho a migrar sin violencia reúne esfuerzos coordinados de una gran cantidad de individuos y colectivos para detener las agresiones contra los indocumentados en su paso por el país, afirmó el obispo Raúl Vera en entrevista con La Jornada, e indicó que mediante acciones se busca sensibilizar a las sociedades y gobiernos de México, Centroamérica y Estados Unidos para terminar con ese problema.

Respecto a la guerra de Felipe Calderón contra el crimen organizado, el obispo consideró que no es más que una farsa que en realidad pretende crear un perímetro de seguridad para Estados Unidos, que incluya el control de los flujos migratorios de América Latina hacia el norte.

La ventaja que tenemos ahora es que esta campaña la hemos asumido un conjunto de asociaciones para frenar el terror, las torturas y el sufrimiento que padecen los migrantes durante su paso por México. Estamos distribuyéndonos el trabajo en comisiones, y nos estamos reuniendo de forma más ordenada y con una visión de prospectiva, explicó el religioso.

Los grupos participantes en este esquema tenemos mucha esperanza de hacer algo, porque estamos decididos a poner todos los medios a nuestro alcance para detener la violencia. No podemos seguir tolerando la impunidad y la complicidad entre los criminales y las autoridades, que es lo más indignante de todo.

Tras advertir que la recién aprobada ley de migración sigue criminalizando y persiguiendo a los indocumentados, Vera señaló que siguen sin atenderse las causas estructurales de la migración forzada: la pobreza y la falta de opciones dignas de vida, por lo que llamó a cambiar cuanto antes el modelo económico vigente...mas

In Spanish: The War in Mexico

Calderón: en radio y tv no hay concesión de orden político

Al anunciar que a partir de hoy radiodifusores podrán comenzar migración a la radio digital, el mandatario exhortó a hacer un periodismo responsable, que tome en cuenta el interés nacional y coloque temas en su justa proporción.

Claudia Herrera Beltrán Publicado: 16/06/2011 10:43

La Jornada

México, DF. A partir de hoy los radiodifusores podrán comenzar la migración a la radio digital terrestre como parte de un acuerdo publicado por la Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones, anunció el presidente Felipe Calderón al señalar que no entrega concesiones con motivos políticos.


Al entregar 75 refrendos de concesiones a la industria de la radio exhortó a hacer un periodismo responsable, que tome en cuenta el interés nacional y la importancia de colocar temas en la justa proporción, considerando  lo que esté en juego en el país.


A partir del nuevo acuerdo, explicó que todos los radiodifusores podrán iniciar la transición anhelada a la radio digital con calidad a la de un disco compacto, también les permitirá aprovechar el espectro radioeléctrico para que se puedan enviar más señales en el mismo ancho de banda, con lo que se podrán diversificar los contenidos para los radioescuchas.


Como la transición hacia radio digital apenas empieza en el mundo aseguró que México se coloca en el mimo nivel de las naciones más desarrolladas.


Destacó que los refrendos de concesiones se entregaron bajos criterios aprobados por la Cofetel que han cerrado la puerta a la discrecionalidad que prevalecía en el pasado. "Nunca más serán motivos políticos los que determinen si una concesión de radio se otorga o no", declaró.


Indicó que su gobierno avanza en la transición de AM y FM y ya ha entregado 292 autorizaciones para iniciar esta transición, cantidad que representa la mitad de las solicitudes recibidas.


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Se puede creer cuando la violencia se acaba.  Tristemente no hay esperanzas.

In Spanish: U.S. Says It's "Extremely Dangerous" to Travel to Many Mexican States

This includes Nuevo Leon, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas, Durango, Michoacán, Nayarit, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Guerrero y Morelos.

Cuernavaca and Acapulco are considered the most dangerous.

Click HERE for April 22, 2011 Report from U.S. State Department on Travel to Mexico

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La Jornada 

EU insta a evitar viajes a dos estados y 

alerta para otros 8

En una nueva alerta emitida hoy asevera que visitar las entidades fronterizas puede ser "extremadamente peligroso", y menciona en forma específica Cuernavaca y Acapulco, dados los “numerosos incidentes” en esas ciudades.

Emir Olivares 

  Publicado: 22/04/2011 12:44

México, DF. El gobierno de Estados Unidos emitió una nueva la alerta de viaje para que sus ciudadanos tengan cuidado de viajar a México por el "serio riesgo" que representa la violencia y el crimen organizado.


El Departamento de Estado estadunidense señaló en un comunicado que pese al esfuerzo del gobierno mexicano para intensificar el combate de las organizaciones criminales, no se puede pasar por alto que más de 15 mil personas fueron asesinadas en 2010 en crímenes relacionados con la violencia originada por el narcotráfico.


La alerta emitida este viernes por las autoridades de aquel país incluye los riesgos que representa visitar todos los estados fronterizos del norte de México, además de entidades como Durango, Michoacán, Nayarit, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Guerrero y Morelos.


Este llamado suma nuevas restricciones al que el gobierno estadunidense lanzó el pasado 10 de septiembre, al incluir ciudades mexicanas afectadas por recientes enfrentamientos, asesinatos y secuestros.


En un comunicado, informó que entidades como Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas pueden ser "extremadamente peligrosas" para los viajeros.


También ordena a su personal diplomático en México utilizar vehículos blindados durante sus traslados.


El informe de la situación de la violencia hace mención específica al puerto de Acapulco, Guerrero, al recomendar a sus ciudadanos que en caso de visitar este centro turístico tengan precaución en la noche. Sobre Cuernavaca, ciudad a la que señala como "un lugar muy popular para estudiantes estadunidenses que toman cursos de español", alertó sobre los "numerosos incidentes" relacionados con la violencia del narcotráfico.


La alerta recuerda que desde 2006, la lucha contra la delincuencia organizada ha dejado más de 34 mil muertos, la mayoría relacionados con los cárteles de la droga, pero en la que también se han producido víctimas inocentes entre la población civil.

U.S. Banks Complicity with Mexican Drug War

How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs

As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored

by Ed Vulliamy

• The London Observer, Sunday 3 April 2011
• 
  

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.


During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.


The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war.


Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year's "deferred prosecution" has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.


More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn – a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico's gross national product – into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.


"Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank's $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 – up 1% on the week of the court settlement.


The conclusion to the case was only the tip of an iceberg, demonstrating the role of the "legal" banking sector in swilling hundreds of billions of dollars – the blood money from the murderous drug trade in Mexico and other places in the world – around their global operations, now bailed out by the taxpayer.


At the height of the 2008 banking crisis, Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime, said he had evidence to suggest the proceeds from drugs and crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to banks on the brink of collapse. "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade," he said. "There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."



Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo during the 2008 crash, just as Wells Fargo became a beneficiary of $25bn in taxpayers' money. Wachovia's prosecutors were clear, however, that there was no suggestion Wells Fargo had behaved improperly; it had co-operated fully with the investigation. Mexico is the US's third largest international trading partner and Wachovia was understandably interested in this volume of legitimate trade.


José Luis Marmolejo, who prosecuted those running one of the casas de cambio at the Mexican end, said: "Wachovia handled all the transfers. They never reported any as suspicious."


"As early as 2004, Wachovia understood the risk," the bank admitted in the statement of settlement with the federal government, but, "despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in the business". There is, of course, the legitimate use of CDCs as a way into the Hispanic market. In 2005 the World Bank said that Mexico was receiving $8.1bn in remittances.


During research into the Wachovia Mexican case, the Observer obtained documents previously provided to financial regulators. It emerged that the alarm that was ignored came from, among other places, London, as a result of the diligence of one of the most important whistleblowers of our time. A man who, in a series of interviews with the Observer, adds detail to the documents, laying bare the story of how Wachovia was at the centre of one of the world's biggest money-laundering operations.


Martin Woods, a Liverpudlian in his mid-40s, joined the London office of Wachovia Bank in February 2005 as a senior anti-money laundering officer. He had previously served with the Metropolitan police drug squad. As a detective he joined the money-laundering investigation team of the National Crime Squad, where he worked on the British end of the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal in the late 1990s.


Woods talks like a police officer – in the best sense of the word: punctilious, exact, with a roguish humour, but moral at the core. He was an ideal appointment for any bank eager to operate a diligent and effective risk management policy against the lucrative scourge of high finance: laundering, knowing or otherwise, the vast proceeds of criminality, tax-evasion, and dealing in arms and drugs.


Woods had a police officer's eye and a police officer's instincts – not those of a banker. And this influenced not only his methods, but his mentality. "I think that a lot of things matter more than money – and that marks you out in a culture which appears to prevail in many of the banks in the world," he says.
Woods was set apart by his modus operandi. His speciality, he explains, was his application of a "know your client", or KYC, policing strategy to identifying dirty money. "KYC is a fundamental approach to anti-money laundering, going after tax evasion or counter-terrorist financing. Who are your clients? Is the documentation right? Good, responsible banking involved always knowing your customer and it still does."


When he looked at Wachovia, the first thing Woods noticed was a deficiency in KYC information. And among his first reports to his superiors at the bank's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, were observations on a shortfall in KYC at Wachovia's operation in London, which he set about correcting, while at the same time implementing what was known as an enhanced transaction monitoring programme, gathering more information on clients whose money came through the bank's offices in the City, in sterling or euros. By August 2006, Woods had identified a number of suspicious transactions relating to casas de cambio customers in Mexico.


Primarily, these involved deposits of traveller's cheques in euros. They had sequential numbers and deposited larger amounts of money than any innocent travelling person would need, with inadequate or no KYC information on them and what seemed to a trained eye to be dubious signatures. "It was basic work," he says. "They didn't answer the obvious questions: 'Is the transaction real, or does it look synthetic? Does the traveller's cheque meet the protocols? Is it all there, and if not, why not?'"


Woods discussed the matter with Wachovia's global head of anti-money laundering for correspondent banking, who believed the cheques could signify tax evasion. He then undertook what banks call a "look back" at previous transactions and saw fit to submit a series of SARs, or suspicious activity reports, to the authorities in the UK and his superiors in Charlotte, urging the blocking of named parties and large series of sequentially numbered traveller's cheques from Mexico. He issued a number of SARs in 2006, of which 50 related to the casas de cambio in Mexico. To his amazement, the response from Wachovia's Miami office, the centre for Latin American business, was anything but supportive – he felt it was quite the reverse.


As it turned out, however, Woods was on the right track. Wachovia's business in Mexico was coming under closer and closer scrutiny by US federal law enforcement. Wachovia was issued with a number of subpoenas for information on its Mexican operation. Woods has subsequently been informed that Wachovia had six or seven thousand subpoenas. He says this was "An absurd number. So at what point does someone at the highest level not get the feeling that something is very, very wrong?"
In April and May 2007, Wachovia – as a result of increasing interest and pressure from the US attorney's office – began to close its relationship with some of the casas de cambio. But rather than launch an internal investigation into Woods's alerts over Mexico, Woods claims Wachovia hung its own money-laundering expert out to dry. The records show that during 2007 Woods "continued to submit more SARs related to the casas de cambio".


In July 2007, all of Wachovia's remaining 10 Mexican casa de cambio clients operating through London suddenly stopped doing so. Later in 2007, after the investigation of Wachovia was reported in the US financial media, the bank decided to end its remaining relationships with the Mexican casas de cambio globally. By this time, Woods says, he found his personal situation within the bank untenable; while the bank acted on one level to protect itself from the federal investigation into its shortcomings, on another, it rounded on the man who had been among the first to spot them.


On 16 June Woods was told by Wachovia's head of compliance that his latest SAR need not have been filed, that he had no legal requirement to investigate an overseas case and no right of access to documents held overseas from Britain, even if they were held by Wachovia.


Woods's life went into freefall. He went to hospital with a prolapsed disc, reported sick and was told by the bank that he not done so in the appropriate manner, as directed by the employees' handbook. He was off work for three weeks, returning in August 2007 to find a letter from the bank's compliance managing director, which was unrelenting in its tone and words of warning.


The letter addressed itself to what the manager called "specific examples of your failure to perform at an acceptable standard". Woods, on the edge of a breakdown, was put on sick leave by his GP; he was later given psychiatric treatment, enrolled on a stress management course and put on medication.
Late in 2007, Woods attended a function at Scotland Yard where colleagues from the US were being entertained. There, he sought out a representative of the Drug Enforcement Administration and told him about the casas de cambio, the SARs and his employer's reaction. The Federal Reserve and officials of the office of comptroller of currency in Washington DC then "spent a lot of time examining the SARs" that had been sent by Woods to Charlotte from London.


"They got back in touch with me a while afterwards and we began to put the pieces of the jigsaw together," says Woods. What they found was – as Costa says – the tip of the iceberg of what was happening to drug money in the banking industry, but at least it was visible and it had a name: Wachovia.



In June 2005, the DEA, the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service and the US attorney's office in southern Florida began investigating wire transfers from Mexico to the US. They were traced back to correspondent bank accounts held by casas de cambio at Wachovia. The CDC accounts were supervised and managed by a business unit of Wachovia in the bank's Miami offices.


"Through CDCs," said the court document, "persons in Mexico can use hard currency and … wire transfer the value of that currency to US bank accounts to purchase items in the United States or other countries. The nature of the CDC business allows money launderers the opportunity to move drug dollars that are in Mexico into CDCs and ultimately into the US banking system.


"On numerous occasions," say the court papers, "monies were deposited into a CDC by a drug-trafficking organisation. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug-trafficking organisations." The court settlement of 2010 would detail that "nearly $13m went through correspondent bank accounts at Wachovia for the purchase of aircraft to be used in the illegal narcotics trade. From these aircraft, more than 20,000kg of cocaine were seized."
All this occurred despite the fact that Wachovia's office was in Miami, designated by the US government as a "high-intensity money laundering and related financial crime area", and a "high-intensity drug trafficking area". Since the drug cartel war began in 2005, Mexico had been designated a high-risk source of money laundering.


"As early as 2004," the court settlement would read, "Wachovia understood the risk that was associated with doing business with the Mexican CDCs. Wachovia was aware of the general industry warnings. As early as July 2005, Wachovia was aware that other large US banks were exiting the CDC business based on [anti-money laundering] concerns … despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in business."

On 16 March 2010, Douglas Edwards, senior vice-president of Wachovia Bank, put his signature to page 10 of a 25-page settlement, in which the bank admitted its role as outlined by the prosecutors. On page 11, he signed again, as senior vice-president of Wells Fargo. The documents show Wachovia providing three services to 22 CDCs in Mexico: wire transfers, a "bulk cash service" and a "pouch deposit service", to accept "deposit items drawn on US banks, eg cheques and traveller's cheques", as spotted by Woods.


"For the time period of 1 May 2004 through 31 May 2007, Wachovia processed at least $$373.6bn in CDCs, $4.7bn in bulk cash" – a total of more than $378.3bn, a sum that dwarfs the budgets debated by US state and UK local authorities to provide services to citizens.


The document gives a fascinating insight into how the laundering of drug money works. It details how investigators "found readily identifiable evidence of red flags of large-scale money laundering". There were "structured wire transfers" whereby "it was commonplace in the CDC accounts for round-number wire transfers to be made on the same day or in close succession, by the same wire senders, for the … same account".


Over two days, 10 wire transfers by four individuals "went though Wachovia for deposit into an aircraft broker's account. All of the transfers were in round numbers. None of the individuals of business that wired money had any connection to the aircraft or the entity that allegedly owned the aircraft. The investigation has further revealed that the identities of the individuals who sent the money were false and that the business was a shell entity. That plane was subsequently seized with approximately 2,000kg of cocaine on board."


Many of the sequentially numbered traveller's cheques, of the kind dealt with by Woods, contained "unusual markings" or "lacked any legible signature". Also, "many of the CDCs that used Wachovia's bulk cash service sent significantly more cash to Wachovia than what Wachovia had expected. More specifically, many of the CDCs exceeded their monthly activity by at least 50%."


Recognising these "red flags", the US attorney's office in Miami, the IRS and the DEA began investigating Wachovia, later joined by FinCEN, one of the US Treasury's agencies to fight money laundering, while the office of the comptroller of the currency carried out a parallel investigation. The violations they found were, says the document, "serious and systemic and allowed certain Wachovia customers to launder millions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of illegal narcotics through Wachovia accounts over an extended time period. The investigation has identified that at least $110m in drug proceeds were funnelled through the CDC accounts held at Wachovia."


The settlement concludes by discussing Wachovia's "considerable co-operation and remedial actions" since the prosecution was initiated, after the bank was bought by Wells Fargo. "In consideration of Wachovia's remedial actions," concludes the prosecutor, "the United States shall recommend to the court … that prosecution of Wachovia on the information filed … be deferred for a period of 12 months."
But while the federal prosecution proceeded, Woods had remained out in the cold. On Christmas Eve 2008, his lawyers filed tribunal proceedings against Wachovia for bullying and detrimental treatment of a whistleblower. The case was settled in May 2009, by which time Woods felt as though he was "the most toxic person in the bank". Wachovia agreed to pay an undisclosed amount, in return for which Woods left the bank and said he would not make public the terms of the settlement.


After years of tribulation, Woods was finally formally vindicated, though not by Wachovia: a letter arrived from John Dugan, the comptroller of the currency in Washington DC, dated 19 March 2010 – three days after the settlement in Miami. Dugan said he was "writing to personally recognise and express my appreciation for the role you played in the actions brought against Wachovia Bank for violations of the bank secrecy act … Not only did the information that you provided facilitate our investigation, but you demonstrated great personal courage and integrity by speaking up. Without the efforts of individuals like you, actions such as the one taken against Wachovia would not be possible."


The so-called "deferred prosecution" detailed in the Miami document is a form of probation whereby if the bank abides by the law for a year, charges are dropped. So this March the bank was in the clear. The week that the deferred prosecution expired, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said the parent bank had no comment to make on the documentation pertaining to Woods's case, or his allegations. She added that there was no comment on Sloman's remarks to the court; a provision in the settlement stipulated Wachovia was not allowed to issue public statements that contradicted it.


But the settlement leaves a sour taste in many mouths – and certainly in Woods's. The deferred prosecution is part of this "cop-out all round", he says. "The regulatory authorities do not have to spend any more time on it, and they don't have to push it as far as a criminal trial. They just issue criminal proceedings, and settle. The law enforcement people do what they are supposed to do, but what's the point? All those people dealing with all that money from drug-trafficking and murder, and no one goes to jail?"



One of the foremost figures in the training of anti-money laundering officers is Robert Mazur, lead infiltrator for US law enforcement of the Colombian Medellín cartel during the epic prosecution and collapse of the BCCI banking business in 1991 (his story was made famous by his memoir, The Infiltrator, which became a movie).


Mazur, whose firm Chase and Associates works closely with law enforcement agencies and trains officers for bank anti-money laundering, cast a keen eye over the case against Wachovia, and he says now that "the only thing that will make the banks properly vigilant to what is happening is when they hear the rattle of handcuffs in the boardroom".


Mazur said that "a lot of the law enforcement people were disappointed to see a settlement" between the administration and Wachovia. "But I know there were external circumstances that worked to Wachovia's benefit, not least that the US banking system was on the edge of collapse."


What concerns Mazur is that what law enforcement agencies and politicians hope to achieve against the cartels is limited, and falls short of the obvious attack the US could make in its war on drugs: go after the money. "We're thinking way too small," Mazur says. "I train law enforcement officers, thousands of them every year, and they say to me that if they tried to do half of what I did, they'd be arrested. But I tell them: 'You got to think big. The headlines you will be reading in seven years' time will be the result of the work you begin now.' With BCCI, we had to spend two years setting it up, two years doing undercover work, and another two years getting it to trial. If they want to do something big, like go after the money, that's how long it takes."


But Mazur warns: "If you look at the career ladders of law enforcement, there's no incentive to go after the big money. People move every two to three years. The DEA is focused on drug trafficking rather than money laundering. You get a quicker result that way – they want to get the traffickers and seize their assets. But this is like treating a sick plant by cutting off a few branches – it just grows new ones. Going after the big money is cutting down the plant – it's a harder door to knock on, it's a longer haul, and it won't get you the short-term riches."

The office of the comptroller of the currency is still examining whether individuals in Wachovia are criminally liable. Sources at FinCEN say that a so-called "look-back" is in process, as directed by the settlement and agreed to by Wachovia, into the $378.4bn that was not directly associated with the aircraft purchases and cocaine hauls, but neither was it subject to the proper anti-laundering checks. A FinCEN source says that $20bn already examined appears to have "suspicious origins". But this is just the beginning.


Antonio Maria Costa, who was executive director of the UN's office on drugs and crime from May 2002 to August 2010, charts the history of the contamination of the global banking industry by drug and criminal money since his first initiatives to try to curb it from the European commission during the 1990s. "The connection between organised crime and financial institutions started in the late 1970s, early 1980s," he says, "when the mafia became globalised."


Until then, criminal money had circulated largely in cash, with the authorities making the occasional, spectacular "sting" or haul. During Costa's time as director for economics and finance at the EC in Brussels, from 1987, inroads were made against penetration of banks by criminal laundering, and "criminal money started moving back to cash, out of the financial institutions and banks. Then two things happened: the financial crisis in Russia, after the emergence of the Russian mafia, and the crises of 2003 and 2007-08.


"With these crises," says Costa, "the banking sector was short of liquidity, the banks exposed themselves to the criminal syndicates, who had cash in hand."


Costa questions the readiness of governments and their regulatory structures to challenge this large-scale corruption of the global economy: "Government regulators showed what they were capable of when the issue suddenly changed to laundering money for terrorism – on that, they suddenly became serious and changed their attitude."


Hardly surprising, then, that Wachovia does not appear to be the end of the line. In August 2010, it emerged in quarterly disclosures by HSBC that the US justice department was seeking to fine it for anti-money laundering compliance problems reported to include dealings with Mexico....more

Mexico’s attorney general quits, President Calderon nominates first woman for post

Washington Post - April 1, 2011

In Spanish: United Nations Recommends Mexican Army Disengage with Narcos

La Jornada - Mexico City

Sacar a Ejército de lucha al narco, exhorta Grupo ONU

Fuerzas armadas se han convertido en una instancia que también amenaza los DH ciudadanos refirió Grupo de Trabajo de Naciones Unidas sobre desapariciones forzadas que visitó México.

Fernando Camacho Servín Publicado: 31/03/2011 18:54

México, DF. El Grupo de Trabajo de Naciones Unidas sobre desapariciones forzadas o involuntarias le recomendó al gobierno de México que retire al Ejército de las tareas de seguridad pública, toda vez que no está facultado para dicho trabajo, y como una “medida preventiva” en relación con las desapariciones forzadas.

Durante la presentación del informe preliminar sobre la visita que realizaron al país del 18 al 31 de marzo, los integrantes del comité especializado hicieron una evaluación de todos los elementos que confluyen en la repetición de dicho crimen de lesa humanidad.

Entre los elementos mencionados en el documento de 20 páginas se encuentran la falta de coordinación entre dependencias del gobierno para prevenir, investigar y, en su caso, castigar el delito de desaparición forzada, que en la gran mayoría de las entidades ni siquiera está tipificado en el Código Penal.

Aunque afirmaron que los grupos del crimen organizado tienen un rol determinante en la ola de inseguridad que azota al país, señalaron que no todos los actos de violencia son responsabilidad de ellos, sino también de las propias fuerzas de seguridad del Estado.

Los especialistas Ariel Dulitzky (Argentina) y Jasminka Dzumhur (Bosnia Herzegovina) enfatizaron que al asumir labores de vigilancia interna que no les corresponden, las fuerzas armadas se han convertido en una instancia que también amenaza los derechos humanos de la ciudadanía.

Asimismo, lamentaron que la impunidad siga siendo la constante en el sistema judicial mexicano, criticaron la figura del arraigo por ser un recurso arbitrario que viola las garantías de los inculpados, y llamaron a las autoridades a cumplir efectivamente con el derecho de las víctimas de desaparición y sus familiares a la verdad y a la reparación de daño.

Monterrey, Poverty, and the Narcos

You could say that Narcos destroyed Monterrey.  Melissa del Bosque (from the Texas Observer) and I agree that it wasn't the Narcos, it was the poverty and income inequality in a city where the rich don't care about the poor.

This week I gave a talk in Toronto about the book I wrote about Monterrey, Delirio:  The Fantastic, the Demonic, and the Reel.  The Buried History of Nuevo Leon.  The book was published nine years ago, so talking about it again brought back many memories of my driving along Constitution and Revolution and going down Guerrero looking for a used book store.  The family I lived with still lives there, in what some people call "the Jewish neighborhood."  They are terrorized along with everyone else.

They are not rich enough to move away.  But so many others have.  All those I used to see with the new suburbans have gone.  They now live in Dallas or in the Woodlands near Houston.  These types of immigrants are welcomed by the U.S.  They don't have any trouble crossing.

One day when I was standing in front of the city's art museum (el Marco) I looked towards the mountains and saw the swaths of shanty towns  - it seemed incongruous to me that so many shanty towns could exist in a city so extremely wealthy (used to be considered the richest city in all of Latin America - I don't know where it stands in 2011).

Organized crime takes over when there is too much poverty and oppression.  Grupo Monterrey, the conglomerate that runs the city needs to think about this.  Or perhaps they already have, but don't want to spend enough of their money to fix their city.

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Can Monterrey Save Itself from the Bloody Drug War?

by Melissa del Bosque

Published on: Tuesday, March 01, 2011  - Texas Observer

How did Monterrey, often referred to as Latin America’s safest city, fall so hard and so fast into criminal chaos? Mexico’s economic powerhouse, Monterrey has long been a city of stark contrasts – Ferrari dealerships and shantytowns.  Just a five-hour drive from Austin, my husband and I made the trip regularly for years to visit with family. My husband grew up there and his father’s family are proud regios through and through. They come from the small, hardworking middle class in the city of two million, which has managed to cling to humble prosperity.


To hear from family and friends about how far the city has fallen is both heartbreaking and deeply concerning for anyone who loves Mexico. Monterrey is the industrial heart of the country, home to large multinational corporations and the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education – one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.  But it’s also ground zero for economic inequality in Mexico where some of the world’s wealthiest people live in gated communities surrounded by abject poverty. And in many ways Monterrey is a test case for Mexico. To win the drug war, Mexico needs to overcome its crippling poverty. The wealthy industrialists who have run Monterrey like a fiefdom are finally starting to address the inequality because the security crisis is so dire they can’t ignore it.
When President Felipe Calderon mounted his war against the drug cartels in 2006, he didn’t take into account the 40 million people living in poverty. For many, the drug cartels offer a way out of grinding poverty. And Calderon’s inability to stem the violence since the drug war began has made the government look weak. The lack of any rule of law has led to all types of opportunistic crime. Not only must regios now deal with cartel related violence but also with car jackings and robberies. Last month, a cousin’s truck was stolen at gunpoint in front of a convenience store in Monterrey. The lone gunman was just a teenager. His hands shook with fear as he held the gun.


A recent PBS news report called the once proud industrial city  “a city of massacres.”  In our own family, a cousin was kidnapped. He’s now been gone for a year without a trace. The gun battles, the blockades and the violence have touched everyone in Monterrey. No one goes out at night anymore. People fly to the city instead of drive. They check Twitter religiously to avoid gun battles on their way home from work. Little by little, their lives are being stolen.


When the violence began to worsen last summer, the wealthy started to abandon the city. Left behind were families like my husband’s – middle class families and the poor. Even the city’s mayor sent his family to Dallas. One of the city’s wealthiest industrialists Lorenzo Zambrano, the CEO of the multinational CEMEX corporation, exhorted his fellow industrialists on Twitter to stay and fight. “Whoever leaves Monterrey is a coward,” he wrote. “We have to fight for what we believe. We have to reclaim our great city!"


But to “reclaim” Monterrey, the wealthy need to acknowledge the rampant inequality in their city. For at least a century, the industrialists have run the city with little concern for the working class. Impromptu squatters settlements ring the hillsides and outer limits of the city. They have no trash service, no running water or electricity. Many kids don’t go to school. For the growing ranks of young people there’s no hope for the future, only misery.  Zambrano, one of the world’s richest men, made his fortune by literally carving up Monterrey’s scenic mountains for his massive cement conglomerate. In amongst the denuded hillsides live the workers barely eking out an existence.  For decades, these industrialists have viewed their workers as humble, simple peasants thankful for the few extra pesos they made.


It took a drug war to get Zambrano talking about how the wealthy should give something back to Monterrey. The industrialist has enlisted executives in his company to figure out how to bolster security in the city through building civic groups and increasing cooperation between the federal and state law enforcement and the military. He’s become a big promoter of investing in education and other social programs. It’s too bad he didn’t think of this 20 or 30 years ago before the crisis. But at least he hasn’t fled the city like many of his wealthy compatriots.


Monterrey’s failures and its successes in this bloody drug war will be a lesson not only for Mexico but also for Texas. Because there are many similiarities between the two. Like Monterrey, Texas has a huge growing divide between rich and poor. The state is also run by the very wealthy who give a smaller percentage of their wealth in taxes back to the state compared to the working poor. This legislative session we could see the income gap widen even further if education and the already meager social safety net is decimated. Perhaps, wealthy Texans should look south if they'd like to see what happens when a society doesn't invest in its own people. For decades, Monterrey's elites thought it was their God given privilege to own the world. Now the bill has come due.

related stories from the Observer

Payday Loans Hearing: Lenders in Lobby-Land

America's Open Arms

Juarez Police Officer Denied U.S. Asylum

In Mexico, the Facts Speak for Themselves

U.S. Missionary Dies after Shooting in Mexico

More by Melissa del Bosque

In Spanish: U.S. Mexicans Not Going Home For Christmas

It must be really hard not to go visit your family at Christmastime, but so many people are not traveling for fear of the violence.  Its a real shame.

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Terror por calcinamiento de cazadores en México

Ocho cazadores que iban de excursión habrían sido ejecutados y calcinados presuntamente por policías en Zacatecas.

• Gardenia Mendoza Aguilar |
• 2010-12-14
• | La Opinión       

  

MÉXICO, D.F.- Ocho cazadores que iban de excursión para poner en práctica sus habilidades cinegéticas habrían sido ejecutados y calcinados presuntamente por policías en el municipio de Plateados, en el estado de Zacatecas, de acuerdo con testimonios de uno de los sobrevivientes.

La información sobre tales asesinatos difundidos por el gobierno de la vecina entidad de Guanajuato – de donde eran oriundas las víctimas- no ha sido avalada por las autoridades zacatecanas que hasta el momento  arraigaron a siete policías y seis sicarios relacionados con los hechos.

Según la procuraduría guanajuatense, dos de los integrantes plagiados del Club Cinegético Casa, Tiro y Pesca “Aldama” – uno de ellos de 15 años- aparentemente lograron escapar y dieron parte a sus familiares acerca de la incineración de sus compañeros. 

Detallaron a su vez la historia del grupo: iban de cacería a la Sierra de Morones, a bordo de una camioneta suburban color rojo, modelo 1994, e iban vestidos con uniformes verdes, con camuflaje tipo militar. 

Tal indumentaria aparentemente provocó que la policía de Joaquín Amaro los detuviera y los llevara a la cárcel municipal, para una supuesta investigación. Los liberados aseguran que se identificaron plenamente y mostraron los permisos correspondientes, tanto de portación de arma, como de cacería.

Sin embargo, aseguran que los municipales no los liberaron, sino que los subieron a un vehículo y se los entregaron a un grupo armado de aproximadamente 20 personas encapuchadas, que portaban armas largas.

Éstos liberaron al menor de edad, y otra persona más logró escapar, rengueando por una bala en la pierna. Los hechos ocurrieron la madrugada del pasado 7 de diciembre.

What Many Have Been Thinking - Its a Civil War in Mexico

In Spanish - Preocupación por México    La Opinion - Los Angeles

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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Clinton says Mexico drug wars starting to look like insurgency

By Paul Richter and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

September 9, 2010

Her comments reflect a striking shift in public comment by the Obama administration about the violence and come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to Mexico to help fight the cartels.

Reporting from Washington —

Mexico's violent drug cartels increasingly resemble an insurgency with the power to challenge the government's control of wide swaths of its own soil, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

Clinton's comments reflected a striking shift in the public comments of the Obama administration about the bloodshed that has cost 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006. They come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to the southern neighbor to help fight the cartels.

Clinton compared the conflict in Mexico to Colombia's recent struggle against a drug-financed leftist insurgency that, at its peak, controlled up to 40% of that country. She said the United States, Mexico and Central American countries need to cooperate on an "equivalent" of Plan Colombia — the multibillion-dollar military and aid program that helped turn back Colombia's insurgents...link

Update on Mexico's Drug War

The mayor of Villa de Santiago was murdered this week.  I used to spend lots of time there in the late 1990s doing my research for my book Delirio, in fact I wrote a chapter on Santiago.  Its strange to think that so much has changed since I was living in Nuevo Leon.  Its really sad for me because I have very dear friends there who made totally possible for me to write my book, but now I can't go see them.  As the Abuelita gets older, I can't have any of those long conversations with her like I used to.  Monterrey taught me a lot.  I hope someday things get better and I can return.

See this clip from DemocracyNow on the Mexican Drug War:

..

A page from Delirio:  

Mexico Drug Wars: The Consumer's Responsibility

From San Francisco:

http://hladc-sf.blogspot.com

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Ciudad Juarez: 2,500 lives in 2009. (Average 6.84 deaths per day in Ciudad Juarez) - Throughout Mexico, drug-related violence has killed more than 15,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels three years ago. ( Average 41.09 deaths per day throughout Mexico)

I feel that the top of my head will explode sky-high the next time I hear anyone say 'that Mexico needs to fix the drug trafficking problem' or asks 'why Mexico is not fixing.... blah, blah, blah' without going out in full force with a campaign to stop the drug market in the US or at least honestly admits that the demand makes the supply necessary.

Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico's deadliest city. Authorities say turf battles between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels are largely responsible for a continuing wave of drug-related violence that cost more than 2,500 lives in 2009.

Throughout Mexico, drug-related violence has killed more than 15,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels three years ago.

In cities all across the US, the Newspaper Headlines scream news of the drug-related violence in Ciudad Juares and that's good, people need to know what's going on there, however, in the columns that I read, I have not come across headlines screaming that there is such a thing as "The Laws Of Supply And Demand", I only hear profusely about the Supply, but there is a deafening silence about the Demand, specifically, that the USA is the Market where the Demand for Drugs is what makes possible the Supply from Mexico, or that the USA is the largest arms dealer and it is primarily responsible for the guns that end up in the hands of the Drug Suppliers who are doing the killing.

Now, when are we going to hear that the USA is going after the demand? Let's not forget, all that river of cash has to be going through somewhere, but I don't see how this could be accomplished without going through some banks.

What is the DEA is doing to crack down on this here in the USA? the FBI? Hmmmm, mum is the word.

Jan. 31, 2010: 13 young students killed at party in Mexico border

Feb. 1, 2010: At least 23 people were killed in separate mass shootings in northern Mexico as the country continued to reel from drug-related violence.

In Ciudad Juarez, gunmen drove up to a house where a high school party was in full swing and opened fire killing 13 people and wounding 17 others, the city public safety agency said.

Most of the victims were "youngsters," said the Chihuahua state attorney general's office.

It was the third mass shooting of youngsters in Mexico since September when, within two weeks, 28 youths were killed in two separate shootings at drug rehabilitation centers.

Most of the victims were students aged between 19 and 25, authorities said.

The war waged by several powerful drug cartels in Mexico has already left 15,000 people dead. The government has deployed 50,000 troops and thousands of police in an effort to put the violence under control.

Jan. 5, 2010: Gunman kill 13 people in single day in border city of Ciudad Juarez

Jan. 12, 2010: Mexico’s Drug War Has 69 People Murdered In One Day

Mexico opened the new year with what could be its most dubious distinction yet in the 3-year-old battle against drug trafficking — 69 murders in one day.

The country resembled a grim, statistical dart board Saturday as law enforcement and media reported the deaths from various regions, including 26 in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, 13 in and around Mexico City and 10 in the northern city of Chihuahua.

More than 6,500 drug-related killings made 2009 the bloodiest year since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in late 2006 and deployed 45,000 soldiers to fight organized crime, according to death tallies by San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute

Nov. 14, 2009: 15 people killed in 1 day in Mexican border city
15 people, including child, 3 women, killed in 1 day in Mexican border city
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Authorities say a 7-year-old boy, three women and a university professor are among 15 people who were killed in a single day in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Sept. 3, 2009: 17 patients killed in shooting at Mexican drug rehab center

And it goes on, and on, and on... And the USA MSM silent about the Demand for Drugs in the good old USA, what? USA arm dealers?

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

link to post: http://hladc-sf.blogspot.com
http://elrinconcitodeaurora.blogspot.com/