| | |  Business News 
Mexico Targets 'Dirty Dollars'
 BBC News
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June 16, 2010
| | Mexico estimates $10B of laundered money enters the country each year. | |
Mexico has imposed limits on the use of US dollars in an attempt to limit money-laundering by drug traffickers.
Mexicans who don't have bank accounts will be able to exchange only up to $1,500 (£1,000) a month.
Those with accounts could change a maximum of $4,000.
The Mexican treasury estimates that $10bn of laundered money enters the country's banking system each year, fuelling drug-related violence.
The last few days have seen a surge in drug-related killings in the country.
In the latest bloodshed, at least 14 suspected drug cartel gunmen were killed in a clash with the army in the town of Taxco, south of Mexico City.
Dirty money
"This measure is consistent with a strategy of fighting not just drug trafficking but also organised crime," said Treasury Secretary Ernesto Cordero.
"We have to close the way to dollars from sources that may be illegal."
The new law applies to currency exchange and cash deposits, but no limits will be placed on the purchase of dollars.
Businesses that work in tourism or close to the US border will be able to deposit up to $7,000 a month.
The illegal flow of billions of dollars from the US is fuelling Mexico's escalating drugs war, the government says.
Huge incomes allow the drugs gangs to buy advanced weaponry to fight the security forces and each other.
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