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Guatemala has long been a drug transshipment point between South and North America. But only in recent years have investigators begun to see how firmly a narco-economy is taking hold there, which is always bad news for small, poor and corrupt countries like Guatemala. Experts say it's hard to know just how much the Guatemalan economy depends on drug profits, but they agree that it's a significant source of employment and capital today. If trafficking and related businesses were shut down, unemployment would skyrocket in certain parts of the country, like La Reforma, says Leonel Ruiz, second...
...financial system is suspiciously high compared with the size of the economy, says Sigfrido Lee, former Vice Minister of Economy and an analyst at the Center for National Economic Investigations, a Guatemalan think tank. This indicates, he says, a likely inflow of illegal money. The U.S. government's recently released 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report backs up those suspicions. Guatemala also has an unusually high number of luxury cars and high-end real estate purchases, Lee says, and buyers often pay in cash. Guatemala City has seen a boom in fancy high-rise apartment and office buildings in recent...
Guatemalan authorities have apprehended dozens of suspects in recent years leaving the country with large wads of cash, often hidden under clothing or stuffed into items like shampoo bottles, book covers and diapers. Last year, the Guatemalan government confiscated $3.4 million in suspicious funds at the Guatemala City airport and sent 20 people to jail, most of them from other Central and South American countries, says Leopoldo Liu, head of the public prosecutor's office on money laundering. (See pictures of South America on LIFE.com...
...crossing on the planet. A giant launching pad for migrants, center for U.S.-owned assembly plants and strategic front in the drug trade, the city of 1.6 million has long enjoyed the best and worst of living next door to the U.S. colossus. However, that relationship has soured in recent months with news of a bloody cartel turf war that has scared many Americans away from even stepping foot in Tijuana. (See pictures of Mexico's war on drugs...
...Chirac's Revenge. Less than two years after he left office with nearly record low approval ratings, former French President Jacques Chirac finds himself atop polls again as the nation's most popular politician. Better still, Chirac can now boast about getting plaudits from President Barack Obama, whose recent private letter to Chirac - parts of which were published in the French press - has been widely interpreted in France as recognition for the former French leader's stance on the Iraq...