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 News from Around the Americas | July 2007 
US, China Probe Mexican Drug Bust
 Olga Rodriguez - Associated Press
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 |  | Tell me, how could he have broken all the anti-money laundering measures?
- Eduardo Medina Mora |  | | Chinese and U.S. authorities are investigating whether a breakdown in security at their ports allowed an illegal shipment reportedly carrying more than 19 tons of a chemical intended for methamphetamine cartels to reach Mexico, the Mexican attorney general said.
The shipment led to what has been touted as the world's largest seizure of drug money and the arrest of Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon, who is accused in the United States and Mexico of supplying pseudoephedrine to Mexican cartels who then used the drug to make methamphetamines.
In March, authorities found more than $205 million hidden inside Ye Gon's Mexico City mansion.
Ye Gon was arrested Monday by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in a suburban Washington restaurant.
On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted Ye Gon on charges he conspired to help in the production of methamphetamines destined for the United States.
He could face more than 10 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told a news conference Thursday that investigators want to know how the shipment arrived in Mexico with false paperwork after passing through Chinese and U.S. ports.
Mexican agents intercepted a ship from China last year that carried more than 19 tons of a proprietary chemical that can be easily be converted into pseudoephedrine, all of it illegally imported by Ye Gon, Medina Mora said.
The shipment left Hong Kong and passed through the U.S. port of Long Beach and was seized at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas.
"There was evidently a falsification of documents that took place at some moment after the product left Chinese territory," Medina Mora said.
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, assistant attorney general, also questioned how Ye Gon did not raises suspicions by U.S. authorities.
"Tell me, how could he have broken all the anti-money laundering measures?" he told W Radio in an interview Wednesday. |
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