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After Year of Suspicious Thinking, U.S.-Mexico Collaboration on Cartel Cases Improves
By Kira Zalan and Colby Adams
printIn the resort town of Mazatlan, just before dawn on Feb. 22, Mexican Marines stormed a fourth-floor, two-bedroom apartment of Hotel Miramar and captured Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the elusive head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel. Guzman had been on the run since escaping a high-security prison in 2001, and his arrest seemed nothing short of a big win for Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials. Nearly two years after the inauguration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose election prompted some American officials to quietly question Mexico's resolve in the fight against drug trafficking cartels, Guzman's arrest can also...
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Mexico's partial reversal of 2010 limits on U.S. dollar deposits will make it easier for narcotics traffickers to launder drug proceeds through Mexican banks, according to current and former investigators.
Plans to attract foreign capital and expertise to Mexico's oil sector could give organized crime groups and corrupt officials an opportunity to layer and integrate dirty money, say industry analysts.
U.S. lawmakers may need to earmark more money for Mexico's financial intelligence unit as part of a $1.9 billion aid package intended to help fight drug trafficking, a federal official said Thursday.
Changes to the final version of Mexico's new anti-money laundering law leave important gaps in the nation's compliance regime, and may elicit criticism from an intergovernmental policymaker, say analysts.
When the DOJ accused 14 in June of washing Mexican cartel money via a horse racing operation, it signified a rare feat in the drug war: a prosecution built solely on money laundering charges. Despite years of trying to choke the cash networks of Mexicans drug gangs, such cases remain the exception.
Mexican cartel members are exploiting mirror accounts in the United States and Mexico to launder money and evade U.S. dollar deposit restrictions, financial regulators said Thursday.
Mexico has lost as much $91 billion per year to capital flight associated with tax evasion and corruption during the last decade, according to a report by an American advocacy group.
Key features of an anti-money laundering strategy to combat drug trafficking organizations pitched last year by Mexican officials may ultimately be dropped by lawmakers, say industry advisors.
Exemptions for Mexican hotels and other businesses from Mexico's limits on U.S. dollar deposits can be readily exploited by narco-traffickers and money launderers, say compliance professionals.
A broad anti-money laundering measure that would create and strengthen criminal penalties and impose reporting requirements on non-bank institutions in Mexico is likely to pass into law this month, say former government officials.
Mexican drug traffickers are likely laundering some of their profits in the country's casinos and nightclubs, as well as in campaign funds for political candidates, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic communiqué.
Despite reports that 30 percent of Mexico's currency is derived from illicit funds, many compliance officers are just now waking up to the reality of the country's extensive money laundering problems, according to an AML consultant who works with MSBs.
Of the up to $39 billion in illegal funds smuggled from the United States into Mexico every year, approximately half ends up in Mexican financial institutions, according to a former official in the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments.
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Revisions to Mexico's anti-money laundering strategy promised earlier this month must account for regulatory-gaps in trade-based money laundering, the continuing problem of casas de cambio and the use of U.S. dollars in Mexico, say ex-law enforcement officials and compliance professionals.
New rules restricting U.S. dollar deposits at Mexican banks could end up pushing billions in illicit cash through U.S. and Latin American financial institutions, say compliance professionals.
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