U.S. OFFERS TO HELP MEXICO CONVICT DRUG SUSPECTS

MONTERREY, Mexico, - The United States on Monday
offered to help with the trial of five money-laundering suspects who
Mexico has refused to extradite in part of a long-running dispute
between the two neighbours.

The five bankers were rounded up in Mexico last year after a U.S.
sting operation against suspected money launderers that caused the
most acute strain in U.S.-Mexican relations in recent history.

Mexican officials were outraged because they were never told about the
operation, code-named "Casablanca," and saw it as a violation of their
national sovereignty.

After Mexico ruled out extraditing the suspects to the United States
on Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, said on
Monday that U.S. authorities would do all they could to help convict
the men in Mexican courts.

"We are totally disposed to collaborate with the Mexican government to
bring these people to justice in Mexico," Davidow told reporters in
Monterrey, a major city about 450 miles (700 km) north of Mexico City.

The five are wanted in the United States for allegedly helping Mexican
and Colombian drug traffickers "launder" their drug profits by making
them appear legitimate.

They were among those caught up in the three-year undercover U.S.
operation, that linked some of Mexico's leading banks to money laundering.

Most of the suspects were lured to Las Vegas on a fake junket for
bankers and arrested in the United States, but some were picked up by
Mexican authorities.

Mexico's refusal to extradite the five to the United States came just
as the United States was considering whether to "certify" Mexico as an
aid-worthy partner in the war on drugs.

The annual certification also draws howls of condemnation from Mexico,
which considers it a unilateral intervention into Mexican affairs and
a hollow process as long as the U.S. demand for illegal drugs remains
insatiable.