$206 MILLION SEIZED FROM MEXICO CITY HOME

Agents Think Money Tied To Meth Trade

MEXICO CITY - Federal agents seized $206 million thought to be tied
to the methamphetamine trade and detained seven people at a luxury
home in one of Mexico City's most upscale neighborhoods, officials said Friday.

The attorney general's office said it was Mexico's largest seizure of
drug money.

Also Thursday, the agents seized eight luxury vehicles, seven weapons
and a machine to make pills from the home in the Lomas de Chapultepec
neighborhood, a collection of walled compounds that are home to
ambassadors and Mexican business magnates.

The U.S. dollars were hidden inside walls, suitcases and closets.

President Felipe Calderon praised the seizure as part of his
crackdown against drug trafficking.

Since taking office Dec. 1, Calderon has sent about 20,000 police and
soldiers into drug strongholds to battle trafficking gangs.

"We have no alternative," Calderon said Friday. "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."

Federal investigators said the search of the home was part of an
investigation into the company Unimed Pharm Chem de Mexico, S.A. de
C.V., which allegedly imported from India 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 Lazaro Cardenas.

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.