EX-BANKERS SENTENCED IN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY--Mexican courts handed down their first sentences against
bankers caught in the U.S.' 1998 Operation Casablanca money-laundering
sting, sentencing five former mid-level employees of Mexican banks to 10
years and four months in prison.

The five, mainly bank branch managers, were found guilty of engaging in
organized crime and illicit financial operations in laundering $11 million
for the Juarez drug cartel, the newspaper Reforma reported Wednesday.

The convictions and sentences against the five were handed down Tuesday.
The convictions were among the first of bankers in Mexico under the
country's relatively new money-laundering laws.

The employees were among 100 people and three Mexican banks indicted in a
two-year investigation by the U.S. Customs Service into money laundering by
the Cali and Juarez cartels.