Link: Drug suspect on lam appeals to Mexico's president | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle.
July 18, 2007, 7:49PM
Drug suspect on lam appeals to Mexico's president
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau
MEXICO CITY — Weird got a little weirder today in the case surrounding the seizure four months ago of more than $205 million in alleged narcotics money from a businessman's mansion here.
Zhenli Ye Gon, whom Mexican officials accuse of hoarding the cash which he earned from selling precursor chemicals for crystal methampetamine, called on President Felipe Calderon to "open his eyes wider" to what he said was the reality of the case.
He repeated his claims that most of the seized money came from a political campaign involved in last year's presidential elections, but backed off allegations that it was tied to Calderon.
"Let people see what is going on," Zhenli, 44, a naturalized Mexican of Chinese descent, said by telephone from an undisclosed location in the United States.
(((That would be good. Really, I'd love to know.)))Mexican officials recently filed an "urgent" request for Zhenli's extradition, which is under consideration at a U.S. District Court. The Mexicans say that Zhenli and his lawyers have used the allegations in an effort to avoid prosecution in Mexico.
The March 15 cash seizure at Zhenli's home in one of Mexico City's tonier neighborhoods was hailed at the time as the largest in Mexico's history and as proof of the country's resolve to pursue the war on drugs. The seizure came one day after Calderon and President Bush pledged at a summit meeting in Mexico to press the fight against drug traffickers. (((Okay, intriguing new theory: everything was just hunky-dory in Sino-Mexican narco-politics, then some Bush-appointed fed blunders in and spoils everything.)))
In an interview with the Associated Press nearly three weeks ago, Zhenli accused Mexico's labor secretary, Javier Lozano, of forcing him upon pain of death to hide $150 million of the seized cash at his mansion. (((How exactly does one do that? "Take this monster pile of untraceable cash or I kill you." Huh?))) There has not yet been an explanation for the source of the remainder of the seized money.
Lozano, who played a senior role in Calderon's campaign, has denied the accusation and threatened to sue Zhenli and his U.S. lawyers for defamation.
A Mexico City newspaper on Monday published a long letter said to have been written by Zhenli repeating those allegations. But Zhenli suggested Wednesday that letter was not written by him and that he wasn't sure of the source of the $150 million — only that it wasn't his and wasn't from the illegal drug trade.
"The person who did this is a very devious political adviser," Martin McMahon, one of Zhenli's U.S. lawyers, said at the news conference, which was held in Washington and carried live on the Web page of the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.
(((A very devious political adviser with 200 million in cash? That's like calling Perot and Bloomberg "political advisers.)))"There are people who know what happened here. I can't pull them out of a hat. We need help. We need a total investigation of what happened here."
The case seems to have become more convoluted by the day, spawning newspaper headlines and opinion columns.... (((And I'd be betting, any day now, a blog. Wait and see.)))
