Thread: Mexican Mayor Busted Smuggling Coke

DOBBS: The mayor of a Mexican city tonight is facing charges of smuggling hundreds of pounds of cocaine into the United States over the past several years. Ruben Gil, who is the mayor of Izucar de Matamaoros was arrested in Los Angeles and flown to New York today for arraignment.

Bill Tucker has our report from outside the U.S. district court in lower Manhattan -- Bill.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, the mayor, Ruben Gil, will be arraigned here in federal court tomorrow. He will be charged with one count and that is conspiracy to distribute cocaine and intent to possess to distribute cocaine. The mayor came to the attention of authorities a few years back in 2004 when a truck that was being driven by his brother that had the name "Gil Moving and Storage" (ph) written on it was pulled over and found to contain 330 pounds of cocaine.

The U.S. attorney here says they believe that Mr. Gil has been involved in other drug deals including some recent ones back in 2006, of a 48-pound shipment of cocaine and then just as recently as November of last year, a 24-pound shipment of cocaine. If he is convicted on this single count, he faces a maximum of life in prison in a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in jail.

U.S. attorney Michael Garcia praised the international law enforcement efforts, released a statement today saying that, "his arrest is the result of an extraordinary cooperation of international law enforcement partners." We did call the Mexican Consulate here in New York, Lou. The Consulate issued a simple statement saying that they will monitor his legal situation in the same way that it follows other cases involving criminal proceedings filed against Mexican nationals.

Now, as of now we should note that Gil has no listed counsel. But according to the U.S. attorney's office that I did speak with this afternoon, he is expected to have his own lawyer in court tomorrow, so we'll see.

And this is a long way away from his home, which is a small town down south of Mexico City, where, Lou, apparently, he's not very much missed. His brother-in-law has taken over position of acting mayor. They say they have no intentions of holding any new elections because things are going fine without him and they are not even sure that they understand what he's doing in Mexico, Lou, because apparently, he told local papers down there that he was in the United States seeking treatment for a kidney ailment and might not be back for some time -- Lou.

DOBBS: To be clear, this, these hundreds of pounds of cocaine on trucks that the mayor owned were in the United States? Is that correct?

TUCKER: That is correct, yes.

DOBBS: I suppose they weren't part of the Department of Transportation's pilot project to permit those Mexican trucks to roll across our roads, one only assumes. Thank you very much, Bill.

TUCKER: You bet you.

DOBBS: Bill Tucker from lower Manhattan outside the U.S. District Court building.

What do you want to bet his brother in law is just as crooked as he his?

Darrell" does our government want to stop drugs?"-common sense"yes,they say they do"-Darrell"would not a fence stop the driving acroos the border of truck loads of drugs?" Common sense "yes,a truck cannot get through fence" Darrell " so why not put 10s of thousands of people to work all along the border and built this fence?"common sense " because it makes too much sense and would work to stop most drugs from getting across"-Darrell "do they just not get it?"