U.S. REPORT LINKS POWERFUL MEXICAN FAMILY TO DRUG TRAFFICKING, MONEY
LAUNDERING

WASHINGTON -- One of Mexico's wealthiest and most politically powerful
families is so involved in drug trafficking and money laundering that the
father and two sons "pose a significant criminal threat to the United
States," according to a recent report by the U.S. government's main drug
intelligence task force.

While U.S. law enforcement officials have spent years investigating the
family -- Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his sons Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge Hank
Rhon -- the assessment by several agencies marks the first time that all
three have been linked directly to the operations of major Mexican drug
organizations.

The Hank family, often described as Mexico's Rockefeller clan, is known for
its multibillion-dollar transportation, construction and financial empire
and its great influence within the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI),
which has ruled Mexico for seven decades.

Hank Gonzalez, the patriarch, was mayor of Mexico City, held two Cabinet
positions under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and used his position as
minister of agriculture to mobilize electoral support for Salinas'
successor, President Ernesto Zedillo.

He was famous for saying that "a politician who is poor is a poor
politician" -- when asked how he rose from poverty to become a billionaire
while never holding a job that paid more than $80,000 a year.

Spokesmen for the Hank family denied the allegations in the drug task force
report, and Mexican officials said the accusations were politically
motivated and designed to embarrass the Zedillo government.

A senior Clinton administration official acknowledged the authenticity of
the report.

"Allegations that significant sums of foreign drug money are being invested
in the United States are extremely serious," the official said.

The report was written by the National Drug Intelligence Center, which
coordinates investigations by different agencies. It accuses the family of
using its businesses to move cocaine to the United States and launder
millions of dollars in drug money.

The report drew on information from the Drug Enforcement Administration,
FBI, U.S. Customs Service, CIA, Interpol and others. The report says
intelligence agencies "intercepted conversations of the Hank family
coordinating drug shipments" at TMM -- a giant Hank-owned shipping
company -- and said the agencies had documented meetings between Hank and
drug kingpins.

The Washington Post obtained a copy of the internal document, stamped Law
Enforcement Sensitive, after it was described Monday in the Mexican
newspaper El Financiero.