BBC
January 18, 2013
A court in Nicaragua has jailed for 30 years each 18 people who tried to enter the country with $9.2m (£5.8m), posing as Mexican TV journalists.
A judge in Managua found them guilty of money-laundering and organising a drug link between Mexico and Costa Rica.
They were arrested in August after police found the cash and traces of cocaine in six vans, some painted with Mexico's Televisa network logo.
Central America is increasingly a transit route for Mexican drug gangs.
The only woman in the group was named as their leader and sentenced to 20 years for international drug-trafficking, eight-and-a-half years for organised crime and seven years for money-laundering - a total of more than 35 years.
However, 30 years is set by Nicaraguan law as the maximum prison sentence.
"Raquel Alatorre Correa will finish her sentence on 24 August, 2042," said the judge.
The money and the vans have been confiscated by the judge.
The 18 Mexicans had already been found guilty in December but were awaiting their sentences.
At the time of their arrest, the self-proclaimed journalists said they had been sent to cover a high-profile murder for Televisa, Mexico's biggest TV network, but the company quickly denied any link to the group. Read more.
The MexicoBlog of the Americas Program, a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), is written by Laura Carlsen. I monitor and analyze international press on Mexico, with a focus on security, immigration, human rights and social movements for peace and justice, from a feminist perspective. And sometimes I simply muse.
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