Thread: Mexican official flies with $1.9 MILLION cash in luggage

Mexican official flies with $1.9M in luggage

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press – 31 minutes ago

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — A Mexican state official was detained as he got off a government-owned plane with $1.9 million crammed into a briefcase and a backpack, prosecutors announced Monday, touching off allegations of campaign finance violations tied to the upcoming presidential election.

Tomas Ruiz, treasury secretary for Veracruz state, said there was nothing illicit about the money the official was carrying. He said the cash, from state coffers, was destined for a Mexico City advertising firm that agreed to promote festivals to attract tourists to the eastern coastal state, including a well-known carnival in the port city of Veracruz.

Ruiz said the Veracruz government had state official Miguel Morales Robles carry the cash payment on a special flight to Toluca airport outside Mexico City because the advertising work needed to be delivered quickly.

Federal prosecutors said a second state official, Said Zepeda, was briefly detained Friday when he showed up at the airport to demand the release of his colleague and the money.

The two officials were released because there was no evidence they violated any law, but the money remains in prosecutors' custody.

Federal prosecutors said they were trying to confirm the money was from state coffers as part of the investigation. Ruiz said he had sent them documentation.

Veracruz state is governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose presumptive presidential candidate is considered the front-runner in the July election.

The Democratic Revolution Party, one of the PRI's two main competitors, charged that the money was meant to fuel a secret advertising budget for PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto.

The PRI has made strenuous efforts to rebrand itself as a law-abiding and transparent party that has left behind the legacy of corruption that marked much of its seven decades of autocratic rule, which ended with the 2000 presidential election.

Mexico has strict limits on the amounts of money that can be spent on political campaigns — the PRI's presidential candidate will be limited to spending 495 million pesos ($38.4 million) for the entire campaign.

Political rivals routinely accuse each other of violating the limits, but electoral regulators rarely bring cases to prosecutors.

"We have before us, without a doubt, a diversion of state resources for the presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Enrique Pena Nieto," the national leadership committee of the Democratic Revolution party said in a statement.

Ruiz strenuously denied that.

"The payment was in cash because of the rush," he told the news station Radio Formula when asked why he hadn't sent an electronic transfer.

With the start presidential campaign season in Mexico, government and party officials are warning about the potential for organized crime to get involved in campaigns and debating how to prevent that.

Prosecutors wouldn't say if the money from Veracruz could possibly be linked to drug trafficking.

President Felipe Calderon last fall said that Veracruz, a state racked by drug violence, had been left in the hands of the Zetas drug cartel before he sent federal troops to restore order.

The state now is the center of a fierce battle between the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's two most power drug trafficking organizations. Former Gov. Fidel Herrera was acccused of being aligned with the Zetas, a charge he often denied.

The Associated Press: Mexican official flies with $1.9M in luggage

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http://www.alipac.us/f12/money-laund...conomy-249747/

Is anyone suprised by this? I am just suprised that it made it's way into the media. Mexico has been buying us off for generations. Wonder which party it destined for. My bet is the GOP

Originally Posted by Cujo47

Is anyone suprised by this? I am just suprised that it made it's way into the media. Mexico has been buying us off for generations. Wonder which party it destined for. My bet is the GOP

He was entering an airport in Mexico, not the United States. Furthermore, why would you bet it was the GOP? Aren't there any corrupt Dems?

Confiscated $1.9 million becomes political football in Mexico

February 1, 2012 | 11:21am

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY-- It was a mere $1.9 million, stuffed as brand new bills in two suitcases on a small jet traveling from the drug-rattled state of Veracruz to the hometown of the man likely to be Mexico’s next president.

Suspicious?

Officers from the federal attorney general’s office confiscated the money over the weekend during a search of the plane, which landed in Toluca, capital of Mexico State. They arrested the two men transporting the cash, who said they were Veracruz officials but could not present any paperwork on where the money came from.

As rumors and speculation swirled, officials in the government of Veracruz acknowledged the money (25 million pesos) was theirs. They said they’d sent it along to a publicity agency to pay for promotions for the Veracruz Carnival. Veracruz Finance Secretary Tomas Ruiz said he sent cash because he was running out of time to make necessary payments (link in Spanish).

That explanation was not sitting well with political opponents of the presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto. Until recently he was governor of the State of Mexico, with headquarters in Toluca, and his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) rules in Veracruz as well.

Was the money a secret cash infusion into Peña Nieto's campaign?

"Could we possibly be witnessing dirty money from drug-trafficking [going to] Peña Nieto?" the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) said in a statement.

"Don't come to me with nonsense that the money was to buy tamales," said Gustavo Madero, head of the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Peña Nieto is leading polls by a wide margin ahead of this summer's presidential election. The PRI hopes to defeat candidates from the PRD and PAN to cement its return to power after losing the presidency in 2000, which ended seven decades of near-absolute rule.

Efforts to reach the publicity agency mentioned by the Veracruz officials were unsuccessful; the company's website says it is under construction. And while Veracruz said the two men on the plane worked for the state government, their names appear nowhere in the state's telephone registries, Mexican newspapers reported Wednesday (link in Spanish, registration required).

The Veracruz government is petitioning to get the money back and the attorney general's office says it is trying to trace where the cash came from. Peña Nieto "categorically" denied the money was for him and wondered if authorities weren't picking on his party for political reasons (link in Spanish).

Mexicans, long accustomed to corruption in their politics, generally seemed both riveted, and repulsed.

Confiscated $1.9 million becomes political football in Mexico - latimes.com