Export/Import Bank's Greatest Hits: Subsidizing drug cartels?

March 21, 2012 5:29pm

Ex-Im's Greatest Hits: Subsidizing drug cartels?
byTimothy P. Carney Senior Political Columnist





Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted against reauthorizing and expanding the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that subsidizes U.S. exports. Leaders in both parties have indicated they will reconsider this Spring. So I'm recalling some of their greatest hits.

I'll let Byron Harris of WFAA take this one away in this 2007 news story:

DALLAS - A News 8 investigation has found that a little known government agency may have unwittingly wasted taxpayers money on top of using the funds to support criminal activity.

The probe originally revealed that small business loans sponsored by the Export-Import Bank of the United States were made to non-existing companies for equipment that wasn't even real.

Now, New 8 has discovered that some of the people who got the Ex-Im Bank loans may have drug connections. The $243 million worth of bad loans were originally made to help trade with Mexico.

The loans have been linked to the Juarez drug cartel, which is known for its brutal murders. The cartel killed one dozen people and buried them in a suburban backyard across the border fro El Paso.

Another loan was linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, whose business is smuggling heroin into the United States.

...
Out of $243 million in the medium-sized loans the Ex-Im Bank backed in Mexico from 2003 through 2005, less than $25 million was ever repaid. The bank, a federal agency, declined to be interviewed on camera by News 8.

Washington Examiner