CASH LINKED TO HUGE METH NETWORK

Mexico City-Based Drug Gang Leader Hiding, Official Says

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's attorney general said the $206 million in cash
seized from a luxury Mexico City house was connected to one of the
hemisphere's largest networks for trafficking pseudoephedrine, the
main ingredient in methamphetamines.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Eduardo Medina
Mora said the ring had been operating since 2004 and was run by a
native of China who had gained Mexican citizenship. The alleged gang
leader is in hiding, possibly outside of the country, Medina Mora said.

"This organization had been introducing the illegally imported product
to our country and maybe to the United States," Medina Mora said.
"There are certainly connections between this group and
methamphetamine producers."

Federal agents seized the cash, eight luxury vehicles, seven weapons
and a machine to make pills during a raid Thursday at a house in Lomas
de Chapultepec, a neighborhood of walled compounds that is home to
ambassadors and business magnates. Seven people were arrested.

In addition to the dollars, which were hidden inside walls, suitcases
and closets, officials found 200,000 euros and 157,500 pesos.

Authorities said it was the largest seizure of drug money ever in
Mexico.

Medina Mora said the network probably had links to Mexican drug
cartels that traffic tons of methamphetamines to the United States,
though authorities do not know which ones.

Since the United States cracked down on the mass sale of cold
medicines used to make methamphetamines, Mexico has become one of the
world's largest producers of the synthetic drug.

Medina Mora said Thursday's raid was connected to an investigation
into an alleged front company, Unimed Pharm Chem de Mexico, which is
believed to have imported from Asia large quantities of the
ingredients needed to make methamphetamines.

The investigation began in December after officials seized 19.5 tons
of pseudoephedrine in the Pacific port of La'zaro Ca'rdenas.

Medina Mora also told the AP the United States needs to work harder to
stop drug trafficking within its own borders, adding that this was a
key topic of discussion between Mexican President Felipe Caldero'n and
President Bush when they met in Merida earlier this week.

At an event in Tijuana on Friday, Caldero'n praised the cash seizure
as an achievement of his nearly nationwide crackdown against drug
trafficking. Since taking office Dec. 1, he has sent more than 20,000
police and soldiers into drug strongholds to battle drug gangs.

"We have no alternative," Caldero'n said. "We must act in a decisive
manner now or the costs in terms of money and human lives will be much
more, and worse still, unrecoverable. We must act now or lose Mexico."