MEXICO REJECTS EXTRADITION REQUEST

MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico on Sunday rejected an American extradition
request for five men wanted in the largest money-laundering case in
U.S. history, saying it would instead try them here.

The five were named as suspects in the May 1998 Casablanca sting, a
U.S. operation that strained relations with Mexico, which said it had
not been notified about American operations on its soil.

A joint news release by the Foreign Secretariat and the Attorney
General's Office said the Casablanca operation was "condemned by
Mexico" and that it had harmed cooperation in the fight against drug
trafficking.

In the two-year Casablanca operation, U.S. officials lured about 40
Mexican and Venezuelan businessmen, bankers and alleged drug cartel
members to the United States and arrested them.

An additional 70 people are fugitives in the case, which alleges that
tens of millions of dollars in illegal drug profits for the Cali
cartel of Colombia and Mexico's Juarez cartel were shipped through
phony transactions to Mexican-owned banks.

The Mexican attorney general's office earlier threatened to bring
charges against U.S. agents in the case who had operated in Mexico.
But on Sunday it said it had been unable to find proof they had
committed any crimes under existing laws.

As a result, the two agencies said they would seek to modify Mexican
laws to outlaw such operations.

The five suspects were identified as Gildardo Martinez Lopez, Carlos
Escoto Alcala, Miguel Barba Martin, Jorge Milton Diaz and Jose Sergio
Calderon Fernandez.

All are under arrest in Mexico, where they face charges of money
laundering and organized crime.

U.S. indictments identified several of the men as administrators at
bank branches in various Mexican cities, and accused them of
involvement in laundering drug money.