Word: garcias
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Garcia Abrego is a prize trophy in Mexico's campaign against drug dealing. For most of the past 10 years, he has been serving the Colombian cartels by smuggling their cocaine from Mexico into the U.S., distributing drugs in half a dozen American cities and earning as much as $2 billion a year in the process. Ruthless, violent and vain (last year he underwent an operation to trim back his bulbous nose), he spent millions each month bribing a network of corrupt officials in the government. Those payments made him untouchable during the administration of former President Carlos Salinas...
...Mexicans say they expelled him because they feared they could not prevent him from running his business while awaiting trial. But there is also the issue of the judges, police officials and possibly even Cabinet members who may have been accepting his bribes. In Mexico the pressure to suppress Garcia Abrego's information about corruption could be overwhelming, so it is more likely to come out in a U.S. court. The expulsion may thus be a reflection of Zedillo's commitment to rooting out corruption. "There is a better chance that the truth will emerge in the U.S.," says...
...living in self-imposed exile in Cuba. Raul was originally arrested for his alleged role in the murder of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. But evidence has recently surfaced suggesting--although not yet proving--that he may have been linked with Garcia Abrego's gulf cartel. Perhaps most damning is the suspicion that when Salinas was President, Raul allegedly used his influence to grant favors to the gulf cartel...
...drug money continually cross into Mexico from the U.S. "They're bringing in tons of dope," says Thomas Constantine of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "There's no reason they can't take tons of money back the same way, in bulk cash." Of all the Mexican drug barons, Garcia Abrego was probably the cleverest at figuring out ways to introduce such tons of cash into the financial system without drawing attention to their source...
...leading drug-money Laundromat in Latin America. And much of the money stays in Mexico. Aided by lax government regulation and the willingness of Mexican banks to accept suitcases full of cash without asking questions, drug barons have been able to squirrel billions of dollars into legitimate businesses; Garcia Abrego owns dozens of such businesses, including computer stores, car dealerships and meat-packing plants. The effect on the economy can be pernicious. Since businesses supplied with capital from drug dealing don't have to worry about profits, efficiency or paying interest, they can drive out legitimate enterprises...