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[OS] MEXICO/US/CT - INTERVIEW-U.S. targets Mexican drug gang's dirty cash

Released on 2013-02-13 00:00 GMT

Email-ID 67421
Date 2010-10-07 23:35:54
INTERVIEW-U.S. targets Mexican drug gang's dirty cash

07 Oct 2010 21:29:25 GMT

MEXICO CITY, Oct 7 (Reuters) - U.S. investigators are targeting the
elaborate money laundering operations of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, the
gang they say is most skilled at funneling dirty cash through legitimate
banks and businesses.

"They are very sophisticated, they are using cutting edge financial
techniques, both legitimate and illicit, to move, launder and store
money," Adam Szubin, director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign
Assets Control, said of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful crime

Szubin's office goes after drug money and terrorist financing beyond U.S.
borders. He was in Mexico this week as the country signed an agreement
with the United States to increase intelligence sharing on money
laundering and gun trafficking.

Mexican cartels, which control most of the cocaine and methamphetamine
trade into the United States, bring an estimated $25 billion to $40
billion into Mexico every year, possibly as much as Mexico made exporting
oil in 2009.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, who launched his army-led fight on
drug gangs in late 2006, has stepped up his focus on cartel cash this year
after facing international criticism for not doing more against money

Drug profits commonly head back to Mexico in bales of $100 bills and then
are easily washed in cash purchases for everything from cars to real
estate. Calderon recently ordered limits on dollar-to-peso conversions and
has proposed limiting cash transactions.

But the United States says it will not be easy to crack down on the
Sinaloans, one of the country's oldest cartels and led by Mexico's
most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Mexican bank secrecy laws still make it difficult to go after drug money
in financial institutions.

Mexico has focused on army operations to weaken the cartels in a three-way
fight between rival gangs and security forces that has killed more than
29,000 people over the past four years. But U.S. anti-drug officials say
the behind-the-scenes work of tracing money laundering is key to weakening
the cartels to ensure they have less cash to buy arms and bribe officials.

"You can't sit still. Every time you name a company (involved in money
laundering), another one is set up or another individual is brought in,"
Szubin told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

A U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico told Reuters that Sinaloa has
outpaced rivals like the brutal Zetas gang in developing complex and
business-savvy methods to scrub illicit cash.

In July, the U.S. Treasury identified two front companies in northern
Sinaloa, where the cartel is based and run by Guzman's right-hand man
Ismael Zambada. Last year it said Sinaloan money laundering companies
included spas in Mexico and cattle ranching businesses in Colombia.

A 2009 University of Sinaloa study estimated Mexican cartels have
laundered more than $680 million in the banks of the western state, a
financial services backwater, and that drug money is driving almost 20
percent of the local economy.

In another tactic, cartels import overpriced goods from Mexico and pay the
bill with drug profits. Sometimes the cartels underreport the value of the
goods to avoid tax.

"We see trade-based money laundering, especially among the Sinaloa
Cartel," he said, noting that all such transactions leave a promising
paper trail for investigators.

Szubin said the Mexican government is more committed to the anti-money
laundering fight than it was just a few years ago and that battling
Mexican drug gangs "is right up there with Iran and terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, as things that we are focused (on)."