Mexican journalists' sons killed; seven bodies found near Mexico City

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen executed two sons of two prominent Mexican journalists in the northern city of Chihuahua, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said on Sunday, and police found seven bodies dumped in a Mexico City suburb.

Alfredo Paramo, 20, and Diego Paramo, 21, were shot dead in Chihuahua early on Saturday after being chased through the streets by gunmen in a car, said spokesman Carlos Gonzalez.

They are the sons of well-known Mexican financial journalist David Paramo, who hosts a radio show, appears on TV Azteca and has a national newspaper column, and Martha Gonzalez, the editor of the local El Peso newspaper.

"We still don't know what they were doing there," Carlos Gonzalez said. "But this has nothing to do with the professional activities of their parents."

Mexican journalists are often targeted and killed by drug cartels for reporting on their activities. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group, says 25 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 1992.

In a separate incident, authorities found seven bodies dumped in a car in a Mexico City suburb on Sunday morning, a local police official said.

Two of the men were found naked. Police have identified three of the men, who ranged in ages from 14 to 42, the official said.

It appeared all seven men, who were found in the suburb of Ecatepec, had been shot, the official said.

Last year, police discovered eight corpses dumped in the down-at-the-heels suburb of 2 million people.

Ecatepec lies in the State of Mexico, which borders the capital to the north and where more than half the population of greater Mexico City lives.

Until 2011, Enrique Pena Nieto, now the president of Mexico, was the governor of the State of Mexico.

He has vowed to take a different tack than his presidential predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who sent in the troops to tackle the warring drug cartels. Pena Nieto has focused instead on stopping kidnapping and extortion.

Roughly 70,000 people have died in drug-related killings since 2006, when Calderon launched his military-led campaign. More than 4,200 have died in the first four months of Pena Nieto's term, a slower pace than early 2012.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Obama blesses Mexican security plan, eyes deeper business ties

By Mark Felsenthal and Steve Holland

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama gave his blessing on Thursday to a new security arrangement with Mexican leader Enrique Pena Nieto, in which Mexico will make reducing violence a priority over hunting drug cartel kingpins in the war against organized crime.

The two presidents said they also want to step up trade and business ties that have been overshadowed by the battle against drug trafficking.

"It is obviously up to the Mexican people to determine their security structures and how it engages with other nations including the United States," Obama said at a joint press conference with Pena Nieto.

At the start of a two-day visit to Mexico, Obama sought to draw attention to the emerging might of Latin America's No.2 economy, even as worries about containing drug-trafficking and related violence remained an inescapable subtext.

The two leaders pledged to begin holding cabinet level meetings focused on boosting business between the two countries and to expand educational changes. The first high-level meeting is set for the fall.

The U.S. president pledged support for Pena Nieto's new policy of restricting contacts with the United States on drugs and drug-related violence to a single point, Mexico's Ministry of the Interior. He acknowledged that the United States can play a role with its own domestic policies.

"We look forward to continuing our good cooperation in any way," he said. "I also reaffirmed our determination in the United States to meet our responsibilities to reduce the demand for illegal drugs and to combat the southbound flow of illegal guns and cash."

Mexico's new "single-door" policy would be an abrupt change from the wide latitude the U.S. government enjoyed in working with Mexican officials across agencies under Pena Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

The change has raised questions about Mexico's commitment to combating drug trafficking and drug-related violence.

Pena Nieto plans to shift the weight of combating organized crime from the military onto a new militarized police force, but has made few concrete changes so far, instead seeking to focus public attention on the economy rather than violence.

The Mexican government has said that killings linked to organized crime fell 14 percent in the first four months of Pena Nieto's presidency, but 4,249 people still were killed during that period.

More than 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed in drug violence in Mexico since 2007, and gang-style murders continue to provide lurid headlines.

Some question whether Calderon's aggressive policies, which focused on eradicating gang leaders, has been successful or whether it has generated additional violence as rival factions vie for control of turf.

Pena Nieto said his approach will emphasize reducing bloodshed and will operate more smoothly.

"Under this new strategy, what we are trying to do is put in order, institutionalize the security cooperation we have today with the United States, and establish clear and singular channels to help us be more efficient and achieve better results," Pena Nieto said in Spanish.

RIGHTS WORRIES

In a letter to Obama ahead of his visit, rights group Human Rights Watch urged him to review the United States' public security approach with Mexico, rapping his administration for offering "uncritical support" for Calderon's policies and citing a "dramatic increase" in rights abuses.

Both Obama and Pena Nieto have said they want the visit to focus on economic issues rather than security. Pena Nieto is eager to underscore Mexico's recent run of solid economic growth, fueled in part by its increasing attractiveness as a manufacturing hub.

The leaders pledged to conclude a trade agreement with Asia-Pacific nations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, by the end of the year.

By highlighting Mexico's progress in moving up the economic ladder, Obama is also emphasizing that his own domestic goal of reforming U.S. immigration laws will not promote an exodus of Mexicans into the United States.

"Part of what we discussed is the importance of getting it done, precisely because we do so much business between our two countries," he said, referring to immigration reform that has drawn bipartisan support in Washington. "If we're going to get that done, now's the time to do it."

The two presidents at their meeting discussed a much publicized energy agreement that would remove obstacles to expanding deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. They said in a joint statement that they looked forward to implementation of the deal.

The United States has yet to finalize the deal, known as the Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement, which provides guidelines for drilling in an area of the Gulf that straddles the U.S.-Mexican boundary.

The deal is seen as the key to opening a new era of cooperation on oil production between the two countries. Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex needs technology and investment to boost its stagnant production, and U.S. companies are eager to help.

(Editing by Simon Gardner and Paul Simao)

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Mexican Farm Owner Sentenced For Scheme to Defraud the Export-Import Bank of the U.S

WASHINGTON, April, 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) announced that a Mexican farm owner was sentenced to serve 60 months' probation for his role in a scheme to defraud Ex-Im Bank of approximately $825,563. 

Jaime Galvan-Guerrero, 40, was sentenced by Judge Kathleen Cardone in U.S. District Court in El Paso, TX.  In addition to his term of probation, Galvan was ordered to pay $825,563 in forfeiture and a $2,000 fine.  Galvan, who is a citizen of Mexico, plead guilty on August 3, 2011, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud Ex-Im Bank of approximately $825,000.

According to court documents, Galvan was the purported owner of a farm in Delicias, Chihuahua, Mexico.  Galvan admitted that he and co-conspirators created false invoices, shipping documents, financial statements, and other documents that were submitted to a Baltimore, MD finance company.  The false documents, which falsely purported to purchase construction equipment, were ultimately submitted to Ex-Im Bank to guarantee the financial transaction.  Galvan admitted that, in fact, none of the equipment was purchased or exported to Galvan in Mexico.  Instead, Galvan and his co-conspirators split the Ex-Im Bank insured loan proceeds and ultimately Galvan defaulted on his loan in late 2007, causing a loss to Ex-Im Bank and the U.S. government of $725,522.  Between 2007 and 2010, Galvan paid back most of his debt to the government.  After his arrest in 2010, Galvan paid off the remaining balance of approximately $150,000 to Ex-Im Bank. 

The U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division prosecuted the case.  The case was investigated by Ex-Im Bank OIG, Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso; Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Washington, D.C.

Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing.  Ex-Im Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.

Ex-Im Bank OIG is an independent office within Ex-Im Bank.  The OIG receives and investigates complaints and information concerning violations of law, rules or regulations, fraud against Ex-Im Bank, mismanagement, waste of funds, and abuse of authority connected with Ex-Im Bank's programs and operations.  Additional information about the OIG can be found at www.exim.gov/oig.  Complaints and reports of waste, fraud, and abuse related to Ex-Im Bank programs and operations can be reported to the OIG hotline at 888-OIG-EXIM (888-644-3946) or via email at IGhotline@exim.gov .

SOURCE Office of Inspector General for the Export-Import Bank of the United States

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Mexican Produce Company Owner Sentenced for Making a False Statement to a Financial Institution Insured by the U.S. Export-import Bank

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) announced today that the owner of a produce company in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, was sentenced today for making a false statement to Frost National Bank, concerning loans insured by Ex-Im Bank.

Gilberto Salazar-Escoboza, 49, was sentenced by Chief Judge Fred Biery in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Texas, to $500,000.00 in fines and twelve months of supervised release.  Salazar pleaded guilty on August 13, 2012, to one count of making a false statement to a financial institution.  Salazar was arrested on July 14, 2012, in California as he entered the United States from Mexico.  According to an indictment filed on June 20, 2012, in the Western District of Texas, San Antonio, Texas, Salazar was originally charged with three counts of bank fraud in connection with Ex-Im Bank insured loans.  Since his plea in August 2012, Salazar has paid back approximately $2.64 million in restitution to Ex-Im Bank, Frost National Bank, and a private insurance agency.

According to court documents, Salazar, a Mexican citizen, was the owner of three businesses identified as Empacadora Fruitcola Santa Ines, S.A. de C.V., La Costa Distribuciones Comerciales S.A. de C.V., and Videxport S.A. de C.V. located in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.  All of these businesses are large produce and fruit companies which obtained loans from Frost National Bank for the purpose of purchasing U.S. manufactured equipment from U.S. suppliers.  Frost Bank insured some of those loans with Ex-Im Bank.  Salazar admitted that in February 2009, he knowingly made a false statement and report to a financial institution, when he submitted five checks to Frost National Bank purporting to show the payment of invoices to a supplier of goods, when in truth and fact and as Salazar well knew, such checks were never delivered to the supplier. 

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division.  The case was investigated by the Ex-Im Bank Office of Inspector General and Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso.

Ex-Im Bank, the official credit agency of the United States, is an independent executive agency that helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. Ex-Im Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.

Ex-Im Bank OIG is an independent office within Ex-Im Bank. The OIG receives and investigates complaints and information concerning violations of law, rules or regulations, fraud against Ex-Im Bank, mismanagement, waste of funds, and abuse of authority connected with Ex-Im Bank's programs and operations.

Additional information about the OIG can be found at http://www.exim.gov/oig/.  Complaints and reports of waste, fraud, and abuse related to Ex-Im Bank programs and operations can be reported to the OIG hotline at 888-OIG-EXIM (888-644-3946) or via email at mailto:IGhotline@exim.gov.

SOURCE Office of Inspector General for the Export-Import Bank of the United States

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Mexican extradited to US under new president

SAN DIEGO (AP) — An alleged drug trafficker was extradited from Mexico on Thursday to face charges in San Diego that he oversaw efforts to bring methamphetamine to the U.S., authorities said.

Cesar Alfredo Meza Garcia, 36, is one of the first people to be extradited from Mexico since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office Dec. 1.

Pena Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon, embraced extraditions as he launched an offensive against drug cartels that shaped his presidency. His administration said it extradited 502 people from Dec. 1, 2006, to the end of 2011, including 478 to the United States.

"We're hoping (Pena Nieto) will continue what President Calderon started," said Tim Durst, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in San Diego. "It's wait-and-see. This is a good sign."

U.S. authorities seized more than 200 pounds of methamphetamine and 100 pounds of cocaine during a 20-month investigation that ended in May, ICE said. The drugs were mostly hidden in cars and trucks and strapped to bodies at San Diego border crossings.

The investigation began when authorities stopped a car with 48 pounds of methamphetamine that crossed the border in San Diego and was headed to Los Angeles, Durst said.

U.S. authorities described Meza Garcia as a top figure in the Tijuana cartel, made of the remnants of the once-powerful Arellano Felix family. Secretly recorded phone conversations featured repeated references to "The Engineer," as cartel leader Fernando Sanchez Arellano is known.

Meza Garcia was arrested by Mexican authorities in Tijuana in September and is the highest-ranking target in an investigation that has led to federal charges against nearly three dozen people in San Diego. So far, 21 have been sentenced to prison.

The extradition comes amid a spike in methamphetamine seizures at U.S. border crossings. In California, border inspectors confiscated 9,735 pounds of the drug during the 2012 fiscal year, up 33 percent from a year earlier and nearly five times the amount seized in 2008.

Meza Garcia was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Friday on a charge of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

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First Mexican extradited to US under new president

SAN DIEGO (AP) — An alleged drug trafficker was extradited from Mexico on Thursday to face charges in San Diego that he oversaw efforts to bring methamphetamine to the U.S.

Cesar Alfredo Meza Garcia, 36, is the first person to be extradited from Mexico since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office Dec. 1, said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy.

Pena Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon, embraced extraditions as he launched an offensive against drug cartels that shaped his presidency. His administration said it extradited 502 people from Dec. 1, 2006, to the end of 2011, including 478 to the United States.

"We're hoping (Pena Nieto) will continue what President Calderon started," said Tim Durst, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in San Diego. "It's wait-and-see. This is a good sign."

U.S. authorities seized more than 200 pounds of methamphetamine and 100 pounds of cocaine during a 20-month investigation that ended in May, ICE said. The drugs were mostly hidden in cars and trucks and strapped to bodies at San Diego border crossings.

The investigation began when authorities stopped a car with 48 pounds of methamphetamine that crossed the border in San Diego and was headed to Los Angeles, Durst said.

U.S. authorities described Meza Garcia as a top figure in the Tijuana cartel, made of the remnants of the once-powerful Arellano Felix family. Secretly recorded phone conversations featured repeated references to "The Engineer," as cartel leader Fernando Sanchez Arellano is known.

Meza Garcia was arrested by Mexican authorities in Tijuana in September and is the highest-ranking target in an investigation that has led to federal charges against nearly three dozen people in San Diego. So far, 21 have been sentenced to prison.

The extradition comes amid a spike in methamphetamine seizures at U.S. border crossings. In California, border inspectors confiscated 9,735 pounds of the drug during the 2012 fiscal year, up 33 percent from a year earlier and nearly five times the amount seized in 2008.

Meza Garcia was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Friday on a charge of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

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Mexican union boss arrest sounds warning to reform foes

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The arrest of Mexico's best-known trade union leader on fraud charges has thrown down the gauntlet to powerful interests standing between President Enrique Pena Nieto and his plans to shake up Latin America's second-biggest economy.

For a generation, even presidents shied away from taking on teachers' union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, making her Mexico's most prominent female politician and a formidable enemy to those who accused her of fostering corruption rather than education.

Pena Nieto, who has been in office for less than three months, crossed that line on Tuesday when police arrested Gordillo and three other people with her at Toluca airport near Mexico City.

Mexican television showed Gordillo, 68, wearing a prison uniform and standing behind bars as a state prosecutor formally charged her with embezzling around $200 million from union coffers and using the money to pay for U.S. property, luxury goods, designer clothes, works of art and plastic surgery.

She is not allowed to apply for bail under the charges.

Gordillo, who deferred comment to her lawyers, faces a maximum jail sentence of 30 years, though prisoners can apply to be moved to house arrest at age 70.

"It is clearly a criminal case," Attorney General Jesus Murillo said in a television interview. "The case is very solid."

A former grandee of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Gordillo has denied accusations of corruption.

She was snared a day after Pena Nieto signed a law aimed at improving education standards that she had opposed because it would weaken her union's clout.

The Mexican president is preparing to launch a series of ambitious measures that aim to overhaul taxes, open up state oil giant Pemex to more private capital and ease tycoon Carlos Slim's tight grip on Mexico's telecommunications industry.

"The fundamental point is that resistance by the de facto powers to reform will be confronted with energy and determination," Federico Berrueto, director general of Mexican polling firm GCE, said after Gordillo's arrest.

In Mexico, the "de facto powers" refer to various entrenched interests that include Slim's business empire and dominant broadcaster Televisa, run by Emilio Azcarraga.

Both have repeatedly fought off regulatory efforts to loosen the control they wield over their respective markets.

The government is due to unveil a major telecommunications proposal in the next few days, while separate initiatives on overhauling Pemex and boosting Mexico's weak tax take are expected to go to Congress during the second half of 2013.

The education law signed by Pena Nieto on Monday still faces a fight from Gordillo's union because it requires a secondary law to be implemented.

Changes to the energy sector could face resistance from the Pemex union so Gordillo's arrest was also interpreted as a government warning to other labor bosses that they too might face close scrutiny.

BAD BLOOD

Although Gordillo is unpopular in Mexico, her arrest has also stirred fears that Pena Nieto could be leaning toward the authoritarian past of the centrist PRI, which ruled Mexico continuously from 1929 to 2000.

Brasil Acosta, a PRI congressman from Pena Nieto's home turf, the State of Mexico, said the party had to be careful that the case against Gordillo was not brought for the wrong reasons.

"If it isn't legally proven, we'll be looking at an act of political repression, which would be dangerous," he said.

Carlos Salinas, who was president from 1988 to 1994, removed two troublesome union leaders as he embarked on his own historic reform drive, but his administration ended mired in allegations of graft.

Appointed by Salinas in 1989, Gordillo became one of the most controversial figures in Mexico.

She has been widely criticized for her lavish lifestyle and she became more vulnerable after splitting with the PRI ahead of the 2006 presidential election, when the party suffered its biggest-ever defeat.

"I imagine he (Pena Nieto) was looking to land a decisive blow against someone, and she was the easiest target," political analyst Denise Dresser told Mexican television.

Gordillo was taken to Santa Martha Acatitla women's prison on the edge of Mexico City on Tuesday night.

NO GAMES

The PRI, reviled by many Mexicans as corrupt and heavy-handed by the time it lost power in 2000, pledged to mend its ways after Pena Nieto recovered the presidency last year.

The former State of Mexico governor vowed to usher in greater accountability and transparency, and his allies are portraying the investigation into Gordillo as part of the new PRI's broader efforts to clean up Mexico.

"They send a clear message. We're not playing games when it comes to governing," said Alejandra Del Moral, a 29-year-old PRI congresswoman.

Gordillo has long been a symbol of the PRI's cozy relationship with trade unions and established interests, which critics blame for fomenting inefficiency and helping to keep the economy lagging behind its emerging market peers.

Opposition lawmakers quickly argued that to realize lasting change Pena Nieto must go further than just arresting Gordillo.

"Today we're going to demand that Pena Nieto carries on with the others in the way he started with Elba Esther," said Armando Rios Piter, a senator for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. "There are hundreds and perhaps thousands who represent this model of corruption."

Among these, he said, is Carlos Romero Deschamps, head of the oil workers' union at Pemex and also a PRI senator.

Revamping the state-run Pemex is one of the toughest tasks facing Pena Nieto. Created when the PRI nationalized the oil industry in 1938, the company became a symbol of Mexican self-reliance and his party has been very reluctant to touch it.

Romero Deschamps has denied taking part in corruption and fought off such allegations in the past, and both the PRD and the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, called for an investigation into his wealth after Gordillo's arrest.

With no outright majority in Congress, Pena Nieto needs support from opposition parties for any major reform of Pemex. They are likely to seek concessions in exchange for votes.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Kieran Murray, Simon Gardner and Paul Simao)

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