 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | September 2006 
More Drug Cash Leaving U.S. for Mexico by Car
 Joe Cantlupe - Copley News Service
Cash smugglers exporting illegal-drug profits from the United States to Mexico have steadily reduced their use of aircraft since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, fearing increased scrutiny at U.S. airports, authorities say.
Once the money is smuggled by car to Mexico, it's a different story. Federal authorities estimate that cash smugglers transport as much as $1 million a day on flights from the Tijuana airport to drug cartels in other areas of Mexico.
“There's a huge volume that is moved on the ground to Tijuana and then out by air to Mexico City and other areas,” said Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in San Diego.
Federal officials said seizures of outbound cash at commercial U.S. airports have plummeted from $25 million in fiscal year 2000 to $7.8 million in the last fiscal year.
“It's hard to prove why something is not happening,” said Kevin Dellicolli, director of financial investigations for ICE in Washington. “Since 9/11, there has been more law enforcement (scrutiny) on passengers and cargo and commercial aircraft, so they are facing a greater risk of detection.”
Security has also been stepped up at border crossings since Sept. 11, but they remain more porous than airports because few vehicles leaving the country for Mexico are checked. Private vehicles are now the preferred method of transporting illicit cash out of the United States, authorities said. It is concealed in everything from false compartments to dummy luggage, packages, gifts and parcels.
Cash smugglers who have been apprehended recently are carrying more money, U.S. officials say. An average of $30,000 was seized per vehicle in 1999, but last fiscal year the figure was $60,000 per vehicle, according to ICE figures.
U.S. federal law has long required that anyone who physically transports more than $10,000 in currency or checks into or out of the country must report that to the government.
Sending cash money orders and checks to destinations outside the United States is a principal method of laundering drug proceeds.
“Bulk cash is still the way to go,” Unzueta said. “The money can enter the Mexican banking system, become laundered that way, or (be) smuggled out of the U.S. through Mexico and then (to) South America.”
Smuggling and selling illicit drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine in the United States is a $106-billion-a-year industry, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
In 2002, authorities seized $11.7 million in currency on its way from the United States to Mexico, while there was $17.3 million intercepted last year.
Several major busts in 2004 pushed the total seized to $24 million, authorities said. “A couple of large seizures could skew the figures for the rest of the year,” said ICE spokesman Dean Boyd in Washington.
U.S. and Mexican authorities have stepped up cooperative efforts to crack down on cash smuggling.
“The heart of the drug-trafficking organization is the flow of money and the key is dismantling the mechanisms that flow back and forth,” said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego. “We've been very aggressive in identifying legitimate businesses that are working for the cartels, and we've blocked their financial assets.”
In August, U.S. authorities froze the assets of 14 Tijuana companies and 15 Mexicans who were accused of helping launder drug profits for the Arellano Félix cartel, blocking them from access to banks and other financial institutions in the United States.
One of those arrested, Lorenzo Arce Flores, a Tijuana businessman, is accused of using an “extensive and diversified” operation to smuggle cash in bulk out of the United States and laundering it so it appeared to come from legitimate sources, officials said. Arce said he is a lawful businessman and doesn't know why U.S. authorities have targeted him.
In most cases, currency is transported in amounts ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, using private and commercial vehicles. The money is moved from U.S. drug markets to staging areas in large cities or near the border, officials said.
Last year, reports by the Justice Department and the Government Accountability Office on terrorist financing identified illegal export of bulk cash as a “major vulnerability” for U.S. security, used by nearly every type of outlaw organization.
Some examples:
In May, as Mexican customs officials conducted an investigation at the Zaragoza port of entry in Juarez, Mexico, they seized about $1 million in U.S. currency from two Mexicans entering the country from the United States. The money, in small denominations, was concealed in a compartment in a Chevrolet pickup with Mexican license plates.
In February 2005, at the Laredo, Texas, border station, U.S. officials pulled over a Honda Accord before it crossed into Mexico. A woman was driving and her two daughters were passengers. Agents found $1.7 million in cash concealed in 65 packages in the rear quarter panels of the car.
Despite the increased cooperation between the United States and Mexico, there is still much to be done, inspectors said. Mexican authorities have been reluctant to allow their U.S. counterparts to inspect vehicles traveling from the United States to Mexico. U.S. officials say they get complaints when they do outbound inspections.
Investigators are monitoring the impact of recent arrests of key leaders of the Arellano Félix cartel and the discovery of drug-trafficking tunnels this month and last year in San Diego County.
“Whatever remains of the Arellano Félix organization, the bulk smuggling is going to continue,” Unzueta said. “When one organization is perceived as weakened, there's always a shark in the water ready to move in.”
As for the tunnels and whether they are another conduit for illegally exported cash, “we have involved a financial task force and are trying to follow the financial side of it,” he said.
Even before those incidents, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory to American financial institutions to be on guard against drug smugglers, referring to an “increasingly prevalent money laundering threat” involving the smuggling of bulk U.S. currency into Mexico.
The advisory is still in place, officials said.
“I think the biggest challenge we face is intelligence and connecting the dots,” Unzueta said. “Tens of thousands of vehicles drive into Mexico, and the challenge for us becomes developing the investigation and the human intelligence that lets you focus on an organization.” |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us