"Mexico is Safer than Many U.S. Cities"

Secretario de Hacienda, Ernesto Cordero

Mexico’s Finance Minister, Ernesto Cordero, announced during a brief meeting with reporters in Manhattan Thursday morning that Mexico is safer than cities like Miami, Detroit or Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and that strong investments by foreign markets in Mexico are evidence of this.

"Mexico is, in terms of indicators of violence, safer than many U.S. cities."

"Mexico, after Singapore, is where foreign direct investment had the strongest rate of growth in 2010. These investments are still flowing and at a very fast rate," said Cordero.

“We certainly have a security problem but we are facing and solving it. The conditions in Mexico will be even better for foreign investmeny when we solve this issue,'' said Cordero during Mexico Housing Day, a conference on foreign investment in the Mexican housing sector.

Cordero noted that the problem of violence due to drug trafficking in Mexico can be resolved and that " We are making the right decisions”

However, there is another form of investments that are also flowing at a very fast rate into Mexico.

During talks at the ‘International Seminar on Corruption and Money Laundering’ held at the federal Senate offices in Mexico City, Senator Carlos Navarrete of the PRD opposition criticized the federal government's inability to impact the financial resources of drug cartels.

Senator Carlos Navarette

“According to the Attorney General’s own findings up to 10 billion dollars (U.S.) were laundered in Mexico in 2010, and the problem is compounded by the fact that that these illegal profits enter the formal economy in very complicated, very sophisticated transactions”

“Of those 10 billion dollars, only 50 million were seized by the authorities.”

According to the Senator, money laundering is done by first-class professionals who specialize in finance, and that explains why in the past 15 years, according to PGR figures, many more billions of dollars gained from organized criminal profits have entered the economy.
The Senator argued that the arrests of 30 major organized crime bosses are meaningless if their economic empire remains unchallenged.

"The financial structure of the drug cartels remains intact; the partners, family members and lieutenants replace the arrested kingpins and this industry of corruption continues to flourish, including the purchase of police and government authorities, and the participation of professionals and bankers that inject the money into the economy.”

Navarrete stressed that their financial resources currently represent the "most sensitive nerve" of the drug cartels and that through money laundering they expand their operations throughout the length and breadth of the country.

To curb this phenomenon, Navarrete said the Senators must work together to raise new powers, resources, personnel and regulations for both the Treasury and the Federal Police in order to obtain concrete results against the laundering of drug money.

source articles:

Mexico es mas seguro que muchas ciudades en EU
http://www.milenio.com/node/643020

SE lavo en Mexico 10mmdd en 2010
http://www.noroeste.com.mx/publicaciones.php?id=660504

Mexico finmin supports foreign investment in housing
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/mexico-economy-mortgage-idUSN1016781920110210