CARTEL LAUNDERING: MEXICO STRIKES FIRM BLOW

An estimated 10 billion U.S. dollars go south into Mexico each year;
the lucre comes from illegal drug sales on this side of the border.
Cartels have been exchanging the U.S. dollars for Mexican money;
that's money laundering.

The U.S. used money as a way to stop the notorious gangster Al Capone,
and other mafia crime bosses since the 1930s. The feds got Capone,
whose business card read "used-furniture dealer," for tax evasion in
1931. Capone would die in prison.

Mexico, of late, has had some successes in capturing a number of drug
kingpins and others high up in the well-structured, well-financed and
well-armed Mexican cartels.

But arrests breed new kingpins. So it's a good move in attacking the
way these cartels do business -- making it difficult for cartels to
trade in dollars.

The government has announced it will limit individual bank-account
holders to an exchange of no more than $4,000 a month. Those without
accounts may exchange up to $1,500.

Companies working along the U.S. border, or in tourist areas, may
exchange up to $7,000 a month.

Mexican officials estimate some $10 billion in surplus money has been
detected in its banks.

Mexican Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero told the Los Angeles Times,
"For the last few years we've seen the Mexican banking system
receiving a very large amount of U.S. dollars in cash, far beyond what
could be explained by the activities and dynamics of the economy in
Mexico."

Officials say since 98 percent of Mexican citizens make less than the
new exchange limits, there should be no effect on the regular households.

By limiting U.S. dollar transactions in its banks, Mexico looks to be
striking a hard blow to the drug cartels' ability to spend their
ill-gotten money.