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Police have found $206
million in cash tied to drug smugglers who imported
chemicals used to make methamphetamines. The money was
piled inside a mansion in a wealthy Mexico City
neighborhood. |
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MEXICO CITY (By Hιctor
Tobar, LATimes) March 16, 2007 In the largest cash
seizure in Mexican history, authorities confiscated $206
million in U.S. currency from a band of methamphetamine
producers headquartered in a ritzy neighborhood here,
officials said today.
Two of the seven people arrested at the home were
Chinese, and authorities said the bust hinted at the
vast scope of an illegal drug trade that links Mexico to
Asia.
Authorities said the arrests came after an investigation
that began in December, when authorities seized 20 tons
of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in the production
of methamphetamines, at the Mexican Pacific port of
Lazaro Cardenas.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations have become
increasing important in the wholesale and retail trade
in methamphetamines in the United States because
American authorities have placed tougher controls on the
sale of the chemicals used to produce the highly
addictive drug.
Mexico's attorney general's office said the December
seizure in Lazaro Cardenas led authorities to a chemical
company, Unimed Pharm Chem, based in the city of Toluca,
about 50 miles west of Mexico City.
"The resulting investigation showed that this company
illegally imported pseudoephedrine acetate from India,"
the attorney general's office said in a statement.
"These chemicals are used to illegally produce
methamphetamines."
Mexican police raided the home Thursday in Lomas de
Chapultepec, a neighborhood home to some of this city's
wealthiest residents and to many members of the
diplomatic corps.
Officials said they worked past midnight to count the
bills, which were hidden inside walls, suitcases and
closets.
The cash seized was mostly in U.S. $100 bills and
weighed at least 4,500 pounds. It was five times the
amount seized in all of 2006 by Mexican authorities in
anti-narcotic and money laundering operations.
