Word: stinging
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...didn't anyone tell MADELEINE ALBRIGHT? Mexico is furious about a drug-sting operation, code name Casablanca, which has led to more than 100 arrests in an elaborate money-laundering scheme. Although stings are illegal in Mexico, U.S. undercover narcotics agents ran much of the operation there. But oddly, nobody told the State Department, even though it has been working hard to get diplomatic immunity for drug agents. As a result of Casablanca, Mexico is considering trying to extradite DEA agents for violating Mexican law. At the U.N. drug conference in New York City last week, Mexico's Foreign Secretary...
...expect the U.S. to significantly alter its approach to drug busts south of the border despite Mexico's strenuous objections to a recent sting operation, says TIME reporter Stewart Stogel. "The 'Operation Casablanca' sting played well on Capitol Hill, and that will carry more weight than Mexico's objections," says Stogel. Presidents Clinton and Zedillo met for an hour yesterday in a bid to resolve tensions over the operation, in which the Mexican government was kept out of the loop as U.S. agents arrested a number of Mexicans accused of money laundering, and brought them to the U.S. for trial...
...Mexicans are complaining that their sovereignty is being violated," says Stogel. "They want the agents involved in the sting arrested and extradited." Stogel reports that Clinton yesterday may have expressed some regret over the handling of the operation, but also stressed that there would be no prosecution of DEA agents. Despite yesterday's talks, a Washington meeting later this week between Mexican legislators and their U.S. counterparts will likely see sparks flying...
...Reno and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin stood side by side in Washington Monday to announce the culmination of a three-year sting operation targeting Mexican bankers who laundered drug money for the Cali cartel of Colombia and the Juarez cartel of Mexico. The booty: $35 million seized -- with another $122 million to be confiscated from U.S. and foreign bank accounts, and more than 180 expected arrests. And there were drugs, too: Two tons of cocaine and four tons of marijuana...
...this was apparently accomplished without any assistance from the Mexican authorities (although some would say that's hardly a change) -- Reno and Rubin told their Mexican counterparts about the sting only on Monday -- leaving red-faced Mexican officials to stammer about how laundering drug money was not "an institutional practice of Mexican banks." Of course not. Thanks, amigos, for all your help...