La
red de empresas que se dedica a "blanquear" el dinero proveniente de
actividades del narcotráfico operan a plena vista de las autoridades mexicanas
y su desmantelamiento resulta más difícil que capturar a los líderes de los
cárteles, consideran autoridades de Estados Unidos, reportó el diario
estadounidense The New York Times.
Ranchos,
casas de empeño, joyerías, casas de cambio e incluso una pista de carreras, son
algunos de los negocios tras los cuales se "esconden" las ganancias
de los cárteles de la droga en México y cuyos dueños, a pesar de estar
completamente identificados por autoridades estadounidenses, viven y operan sus
negocios abiertamente en territorio mexicano.
"Que
vengan y me investiguen. No tengo nada que ocultar", asevera Hugo Cuéllar Hurtado, empresario que ha
sido señalado como traficante de cocaína y colaborador de Joaquín "El
Chapo" Guzmán pero que, a diferencia del líder del Cártel de Sinaloa,
goza de plena libertad e incluso presume de su buena relación con el gobierno
mexicano.
Otro
de los empresarios que ha sido vinculado al lavado de dinero proveniente del
narcotráfico es Joel López, quien
afirma que erróneamente el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos lo
identifica como el colaborador de Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
"Se
presumen muchas cosas aquí en Sinaloa, así que todos los empresarios como yo,
estamos expuestos a la posibilidad de ser vinculados al crimen
organizado", asegura López.
Aún
y cuando autoridades estadounidenses y mexicanas han colaborado de manera
conjunta para cerrarle el paso al narcotráfico y dicho trabajo ha derivado en
capturas de líderes como "El Chapo" Guzmán, la cooperación bilateral
se desmorona al tratar de desmantelar las redes empresariales de los cárteles,
ya que el Gobierno de México da "poco seguimiento de los negocios
turbios", afirma la publicación.
"No
se le pone el suficiente énfasis como para convertirlo en una prioridad",
asegura Alonzo Peña, exsubdirector de
Inmigración y Aduanas, en cuanto al desmantelamiento de las redes de lavado.
Por
su parte, un "alto funcionario mexicano", asegura que la evidencia
que presenta Estados Unidos sobre empresarios supuestamente dedicados a
"blanquear" el dinero proveniente del narcotráfico, no tiene el nivel suficiente para realizar
decomisos.
El
investigador del Instituto México del Centro Wilson, Eric L. Olson, asevera que es difícil lograr una afectación a las
finanzas de una operación global, como lo son los cárteles de la droga en
México.
"Una
cosa es ir tras una empresa individual como un taller de reparación de calzado
en Querétaro, pero desmantelar toda la organización como las operaciones del
Cártel de Sinaloa es algo global", asegura Olson.
Guadalajara,
Jalisco y Culiacán, Sinaloa, son territorios que dependen y se mantienen de dos
pilares económicos: los centros agrícolas y del contrabando de drogas, indica
el diario estadounidense.
"La
ciudad se mantiene a flote por el dinero del narco. Los restaurantes, los spas,
los centros comerciales, las distribuidoras de autos de lujo, los condominios
no corresponden a la vida diaria de los sinaloenses. Todo se debe a la
presencia del narco", indica Javier Valdez Cárdenas, fundador de Riodoce,
diario publicado en Culiacán.
La
nota del NYT
Vast
Web Hides Mexican Drug Profits in Plain Sight, U.S. Authorities Say/By
RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLDMARCH 25, 2014
TLAJOMULCO,
Mexico — The United States calls Hugo Cuéllar Hurtado a longtime trafficker of
the cocaine coming from South America, working with one of the men believed to
command Mexico’s biggest drug cartel now that its leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera,
has been captured.
But
while Mr. Guzmán — known as El Chapo, or Shorty — spent 13 years on the run,
sometimes even escaping through underground tunnels dug under bathrooms, Mr.
Cuéllar walks freely around Guadalajara, attending luncheons and chatting up
diplomats. He says he even won a government grant for an ostrich farm he runs
here.
“Let
them come and investigate me,” he said leisurely over a breakfast of ostrich
steaks and sausages at his 57-acre ranch, which the Treasury Department just
designated a money-laundering pit for Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel. “I have
nothing to hide.”
Over
the last seven years the U.S. Treasury Department has designated more than 400
people and entities as part of or affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel. Once
sanctions have been imposed, American citizens, banks and companies are
prohibited from doing business with them.
Hugo
Cuéllar Hurtado, five family members and one associate were recently
sanctioned.
Source:
Office of Foreign Assets Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Many
of the people and companies suspected of forming the cartel’s extensive
money-laundering network continue to operate, even though they appear, as Mr.
Cuéllar just did, on the American government’s so-called kingpin list of cartel
operatives and their associates.
Like
Mr. Cuéllar, businesspeople accused of working with the cartel live openly here
and elsewhere in Mexico, despite American assertions that they are helping to
hide billions in illicit profits through an intricate web of ranches,
pawnshops, jewelry stores, money exchanges, a racetrack, even a day care center
that hummed with the comings and goings of children on a recent afternoon. The
day care center was added to the sanctions list seven years ago.
While
American and Mexican authorities have conducted some joint investigations and
seizures, the kind of close collaboration that led to the capture of Mr. Guzmán
last month often breaks down when it comes to dismantling the cartel’s
financial backbone. American officials say that they identify suspects based on
intelligence from drug, customs and immigration agents, but that to their great
frustration there is too little follow-through in Mexico to pursue shady
businesses and their owners.
“There
is not enough emphasis there on making it a priority,” said Alonzo Peña, a
former deputy director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “It took the
U.S. a long time to focus on money. For a long time, it was ‘Let’s just go
after the drugs.’ The U.S. has evolved,” he added, while “Mexico is a little
behind the curve and has not made as much of a shift from drugs to money.”
Mexico
has new laws to fight money-laundering, but a senior Mexican official said the
evidence the United States presents often does not rise to a level that would
allow property seizures or arrests under Mexican law.
“It’s
one thing to designate; it’s another to give proof,” the official said,
speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to go beyond official talking
points.
Michael
S. Vigil, a former chief of global operations at the United States Drug
Enforcement Administration, said that when Mexico seized property and assets,
they were often returned under a judge’s order, through loopholes exploited by
cartel lawyers.
Continue
reading the main story
“There
has to be a motivation and willingness to work together and go after the
assets,” Mr. Vigil said. “The only thing that hurts the traffickers is when you
take away their money and property.”
Few
people have gone to prison or have had their businesses shut down as a result
of the American sanctioning. Instead, analysts said, it functions more as a
scarlet letter that can complicate finances by prohibiting American banks,
companies and citizens from doing business with them, making cross-border
banking difficult and chasing away some legitimate investors.
“The
U.S. operations and designations are pretty unilateral,” said Eric L. Olson, a
scholar at the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. But Mexican officials “don’t
have to go along” with the American enforcement actions, he noted.
Even
when nations work together, “the ability to shut down the finances of a global
operation is pretty difficult,” Mr. Olson said. “It’s one thing to go after an
individual business like a shoe repair shop in Querétaro, but to dismantle the
overall organization like the Sinaloa operation is global.”
Guadalajara
and Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa State, which both lie in agricultural hubs
along drug smuggling routes, are places where Mr. Guzmán is believed to have
hidden his cash.
“The
city is kept afloat by narco money,” said Javier Valdez Cárdenas, founder of
Ríodoce, a newspaper in Culiacán. “The amount of bistros, restaurants, spas,
shopping malls, luxury car dealerships, condos — it does not correspond to the
life of everyday Sinaloans. It’s the narco presence.”
The
senior Mexican official declined to comment on Mr. Cuéllar’s case, refusing to
say whether his assets were being investigated. Mr. Cuéllar is not known to
face criminal charges in Mexico or in the United States, though such charges
may be filed under seal and made public later.
The
Culiacán auto racing track landed on the Treasury Department’s list in 2011 as
a cartel asset. It continues to operate and had a healthy crowd on a recent
night for its weekly “arrancones,” or drag racing.
Joel
López, who said he opened the track in 2006, contended that the Treasury
Department had wrongly identified a lieutenant of Ismael Mario Zambada — known
as El Mayo, another man believed to be a possible successor to Mr. Guzmán — as
the controlling investor behind it.
“I
am a businessman, and I have nothing to hide,” Mr. López said. “A lot of things
are presumed here in Sinaloa, so all the businessmen like myself are exposed to
the possibility of being linked to organized crime.”
The
exact ownership and profitability of businesses are often difficult to discern.
A dairy called Santa Monica, which the United States says is a reservoir for
the cartel’s dirty money, had no products available at the largest grocery
chain in Culiacán, its home base. In a supermarket where the brand was found,
only one product, whole milk, was for sale, compared with an array of milks, cheeses
and yogurts from other brands.
At
the dairy’s unmarked plant on a highway outside Culiacán, workers said there
were no representatives available to talk. At a small administrative office in
town, across from an abandoned Santa Monica plant, a receptionist likewise said
no owner or manager was available. No one answered a message left there.
Mr.
Cuéllar landed on the sanctions list five days after the capture of Mr. Guzmán,
part of what American officials call a renewed effort to tighten the financial
noose on the cartel. Mr. Cuéllar complained that he now stands to lose American
customers and perhaps some Mexican ones, without due process.
Still,
his 30-odd workers kept busy, tending the Friesian horses he keeps, feeding a
new batch of ostrich chicks and carving meat at the ranch’s processing plant. A
grant from the Mexican agriculture department in 2011 helped modernize the
facilities, according to Mr. Cuéllar and Mexican newspaper accounts.
Mr.
Cuéllar, a Colombian-Mexican, says he is the victim of guilt by association
with a childhood friend, Leonidas Vargas Vargas, a Colombian drug lord shot to
death in 2009 while serving a 19-year sentence for narcotics trafficking in
Spain
“That
is the only thing I can think of, that they think I have some link with that
guy,” he said.
Five
of Mr. Cuéllar’s relatives also face Treasury sanctions, including a son, John
Fredy Cuéllar, and a daughter-in-law, Gabriela Amarillas López. Ms. Amarillas
is the daughter of Sinaloa State’s under secretary for finance, Gildardo
Amarillas López, who has denied any connections to drug trafficking.
If
Mr. Cuéllar’s ranch suffers from the American sanctions, he said, he will
probably sell it and do something else — another limit of the sanctions. He
said he was already considering liquidating some of his assets.
“I
guess I would have to find another business,” he said.
Correction:
March 25, 2014
An earlier version of this article misspelled
the surname of a son of Hugo Cuéllar Hurtado. He is John Fredy Cuéllar, not
Cuéller.
Paulina
Villegas contributed reporting from Mexico City.
A
version of this article appears in print on March 26, 2014, on page A4 of the
New York edition with the headline: Vast Web Hides Mexican Drug Profits in
Plain Sight, U.S. Authorities Say. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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