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 CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label Narco-Televisa Scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Narco-Televisa Scandal. Show all posts
Nov 4, 2012
Mexico’s Narco Televisa Scandal: The Impunity of the Elite
MadCow Morning News posted on October 29, 2012 by Daniel Hopsicker
Even as he prepares to take office in a month, a mushrooming scandal in Mexico threatens that country’s new President, Enrique Pena Nieto.
Some call it Mexico’s Watergate; the comparison might even be apt.
Like Watergate—which picked up momentum only after Richard Nixon had won the ’72 Presidential election—the Narco Televisa Scandal is heating up just before Pena Nieto takes office.
Watergate had a largely unexplored Mexican connection. The Narco Televisa Scandal has an American angle. Both scandals involve drug money.
And therein lies the rub, explaining why reaction in the U.S.—despite billions of US taxpayer dollars pouring into the black hole of Mexico's drug war—has been a studied and exceedingly mild indifference.
“It has become known as the case of the fake journalists, read the lead in a recent wire report about the case distributed to American newspapers.
But this is untrue. No one in Mexico—where Televisa’s guilty involvement is almost a given—is calling it that. It is the Narco-Televisa Scandal. Read more.
Even as he prepares to take office in a month, a mushrooming scandal in Mexico threatens that country’s new President, Enrique Pena Nieto.
Some call it Mexico’s Watergate; the comparison might even be apt.
Like Watergate—which picked up momentum only after Richard Nixon had won the ’72 Presidential election—the Narco Televisa Scandal is heating up just before Pena Nieto takes office.
Watergate had a largely unexplored Mexican connection. The Narco Televisa Scandal has an American angle. Both scandals involve drug money.
And therein lies the rub, explaining why reaction in the U.S.—despite billions of US taxpayer dollars pouring into the black hole of Mexico's drug war—has been a studied and exceedingly mild indifference.
“It has become known as the case of the fake journalists, read the lead in a recent wire report about the case distributed to American newspapers.
But this is untrue. No one in Mexico—where Televisa’s guilty involvement is almost a given—is calling it that. It is the Narco-Televisa Scandal. Read more.
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