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Despite Federal Deal, Legal Questions Accompany Mexico’s Vigilante Movement

By Colby Adams

Armed resistance by militia groups to Mexico's violent drug cartels will complicate the efforts of bankers charged with following anti-money laundering laws, whatever their sympathies, say industry consultants. Since 2011, over 100 vigilante groups have formed in 11 states throughout the country as part of a grassroots movement to tamp down cartel-related violence, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. Last month, officials offered to legalize groups in the states of Michoacan provided that they disclose their membership and register their weapons. But the offer won't undo the groups' links to executions and illegal gun ownership-a fact that "muddies the...

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