Mexican drug traffickers launder billions of dollars in U.S. each year

People's Daily Online
Posted: 2007-10-31 20:21:06

Mexican drug traffickers send about 10 billion U.S. dollars of laundered drug money to U.S. banks each year, Mexico's top prosecutor said Tuesday.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina said in Congress that about 1 billion dollars is sent to Mexico from U.S. banks each year, but up to 16 billion is returned to the U.S., about 10 billion of which "could be attributed to the flow of drug trafficking money."

Medina said the illegal money is laundered through cash purchases of expensive things such as real estate, cars and jewelry.

The top prosecutor added that his office is drafting a money-laundering bill to regulate people responsible for monitoring the transactions such as car distributors.

Source: Xinhua