Port of Oakland's Drug Kingpins

"TMM"-Transportacion Maritima Mexicana operating out of the Port Of
Oakland.

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golden opportunity

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1996/12/16/newscolumn5.html

BIENVENIDO 1996: The Port of Oakland has welcomed Mexico's national containerships back into the bay. The national flag carrier, Transportacion Maritima Mexicana, sent a containership into the port Dec. 6 after nearly a decade away. Port officials called the carrier a "valuable asset" in the competition for cargo along the West Coast; they expect to ship 7,000 export containers from Oakland on the service each year, most of which Oakland has now gained from Southern California.

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Some Narco Dealings of "TMM/Transportacion Maritima Mexicana.

http://www.customscorruption.com/white_tiger/WhiteTigerAttachmentInsight7.gif

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Senate Aide; Undermined By Narco Traffickers/TMM

http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/col-info/1999.11/msg00031.html

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The Hank Family Controls "TMM/Transportacion Maritima Mexicana at the
Port Of Oakland".

The task force scrutinized an array of business dealings as well as every tie the Hanks ever had with convicted or suspected narcotraffickers ‹ from friendships to joint ownership of businesses,
including the suspected drug-linked commercial airline Taesa and the cargo-shipping firm Transportacion Maritima Mexicana, or TMM.

"From Carlos Hank Nafta Bank Story Below"
The customs report reprinted in Proceso also focuses on Transportacíon Marítima Mexicana, a shipping company controlled by Carlos Hank; the Tijuana race track; and Laredo National Bank. It also provides details about alleged drug dealing and money laundering by the Hank enterprises. None of this
has anything to do with federal banking law, but Federal Reserve lawyers would have to be blind to miss it. "The enforcement and supe supervision] people at the Fed don't do criminal investigations," a former Fed employee said. "They license and supervise banks, it's all financial. But they do pay attention to this
sort of stuff." For more, read the story below on Carlos Hank Nafta Bank.

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Operation White Tiger

http://www.customscorruption.com/white_tiger/operation.htm

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Next:
From Portland Norml News posted Fri June,4 1999.
MEXICO: A report released this week by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) charges that a prominent Mexican family has ties to drug trafficking and money laundering.The report says it bases its
findings upon information gathered by various federal law enforcement agencies about Carlos Hank-Gonzales and Carlos and Jorge Hank-Rhon's
involvement in the drug trade. The family controls a multi-billion dollar transportation, construction and financial empire.Carlos Hank-Gonzalez, who ended his career in politics in1994, was mayor of Mexico City and held two positions in the cabinet of President Carlos Salinas de Gortori. He used his position as minister of agriculture to aid current president Ernesto Zedillo in his election. The Hank family has denied all allegations in the report and claims that the report is politically motivated and designed to embarrass the Zedillo government.

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King Pin Bill Targeted By Lobbyists.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1196/a01.html

Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, a major Washington law firm, began an intensive lobbying effort to amend the legislation on behalf
of Transportacion Maritima Mexicana ( TMM ) after the Senate in August unanimously passed an earlier version of what is now called the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.

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Mexico Billionaire to pay $40 Million (Carlos Hank-Rohn)

http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/BUSINESS/06/01/mexico.rhon.reut/

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Note;From Narco General Case...See Below...
Public officials' alleged connections to drug trafficking received heavy press coverage. Ex-minister Raúl Salinas Lozano, ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari's father', and Raúl Salinas de Gortari (who had been linked to Juan García, ex-leader of the Gulf Cartel). Other alleged "narco politicians", frequently mentioned by the U.S. press are: "Carlos Hank
González", ex-minister and ex-PRI party leader; Mario Ruiz Massieu, brother of the murdered PRI leader, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, in jail in the
United States facing an accusation for money laundering; the governors of Sonora and Morelos, Manlio Beltrones and Gen. Jorge Carrillo Olea,
implicated as Amado Carrillo's accomplices by
The New York Times on February 23, 1997.

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"The Mexico Papers"

http://narco.news.xs2.net/giordanomemojuly2001.html

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Next Excerpts From NUCNEWS-Military 8/24/99
Congress Seeks Wide Sanctions for Drug Trade
By TIM GOLDEN August 24, 1999

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/082499congress-drugs.html

WASHINGTON -- Congress is close to forcing a major expansion of economic sanctions against international narcotics traffickers and the businesses that work with them.

"TMM a noted player in the world Narco Trafficers responds below further in the same story".

"If you're a legitimate company and you're targeted, you should have a way to defend yourself before you get on the list," said Luis Calvillo, a spokesman for one of Mexico's biggest international transportation
companies, Transportación Marítima Mexicana, or T.M.M.. Both T.M.M. and the Mexican Embassy in Washington have been campaigning strongly for detailed amendments to the legislation, with lobbyists for T.M.M. working to organize a coalition of like-minded American businesses. The Mexican firm, one of Latin America's largest shipping companies, has complained that it has been unfairly linked to drug
trafficking by United States intelligence documents in the past.

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Excerpt From:
December 23, 1998
U.S. Plan to Help Mexican Military Fight Drugs Is Faltering
By TIM GOLDEN
Since late 1995, however, U.S. officials say they have not detected a single jetload of cocaine flying into Mexico. In fact, they say, drug flights into Mexico have stopped altogether as the traffickers have shifted to
maritime shipments through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Yucatan peninsula and up the Pacific coast, and to overland transportation, mainly by truck.

http://www.pdxnorml.org/981223.html#uma

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Next:
Excerpt From Frontline Interview with Andre Oppenheimer: AND YOU SAY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT KNEW? THE AMBASSADOR ACTUALLY TOLD US
THAT HE EVEN HAD INFORMATION ABOUT RAUL BEING TIED UP WITH DRUG MONEY.
I think there is a see no evil, hear no evil policy towards Mexico that in the end hurts the U.S. and hurts Mexico.
WHAT WAS CITIBANK'S ROLE IN THE RAUL SALINAS SAGA?
Citibank acted as Raul Salinas's private banker. According to investigators, Citibank took Raul Salinas's money and helped him invest it in foreign trust funds all over the world. So they basically acted as his private banker and
. . .
CITIBANK TOOK HIS MONEY BUT THIS WAS NOT A NORMAL TRANSACTION, IT IS NOT LIKE HE WENT INTO THE BANK HERE IN MEXICO CITY AND HE SAID HERE'S MY MONEY, INVEST IT FOR ME. WHAT HAPPENED? DID HE OPEN A BANK ACCOUNT AT
CITIBANK IN MEXICO CITY?
Raul Salinas was introduced to Citibank by a close friend of his, Carlos Hank Rohn who tells him they will show you the way to hide your money in foreign bank accounts which is, by the way, a normal practice for
businessmen all over the world. Except that banks have in their guidelines policies about not to taking money from politicians or members of political families, not to take large sums of money from them.
IT'S NOT UNUSUAL FOR A MEXICAN POLITICIAN OR A WEALTHY MEXICAN TO GO TO CITIBANK IS IT?
Citibank has a long, long relationship with Mexico. It was the first foreign bank in Mexico, the most successful one, the one that survived several
administrations where other foreign banks were kicked out of Mexico and a lot of Mexican industrialists and, according to what you hear in political circles, a lot of Mexican politicians had bank accounts at Citibank.
After the whole story broke out we learned that several of them had bank accounts at Citibank.
SO CARLOS HANK ROHN--WHO GAVE RAUL SOME OF THE MONEY THAT HE'S GOING TO
GET, WHO IS PART OF THIS POWERFUL FAMILY--TOOK RAUL TO CITIBANK TO, YOU SAY,
TO HIDE THIS MONEY. HOW DOES CITIBANK DO THAT FOR HIM AND WHY?
Well Raul Salinas, from what investigators tell me, told Citibank that like many other wealthy Mexican businessmen he was worried about kidnappings, and government persecutions in later years etc. etc. And
because he didn't want anybody to find out that the brother of a former Mexican president had hundreds of millions dollars in foreign bank accounts he needed a safe place to keep his money . So Citibank set up trust
funds in Switzerland, in London, and in several other places that would basically hide his name under several layers of secrecy.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/interviews/oppenheimer.html

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Next:
Excerpt from Frontline Interview of Dr.John Womack.
AND DURING CARLOS SALINAS'S REGIME THERE WERE A NUMBER OF MAJOR ECONOMIC CHANGES AND PRIVATIZATIONS IN MEXICO. BUT THE OTHER THING THAT HAPPENED WHICH WAS TO SOME EXTENT OUT OF HIS CONTROL IS THAT MEXICO BECAME THE PIPELINE FOR DRUGS INTO THE UNITED STATES.NOW WE'RE HEARING THAT THAT MONEY MADE IT TO LOS PINOS WHILE CARLOS
SALINAS WAS IN POWER. IS THAT POSSIBLE? TRUE?
That's it's true that drug money was channeled through Los Pinos. As the FBI and I suppose the CIA and the DEA and so on move the drug trade out of the Caribbean and westward, it came across Mexico and I think it started going through a lot of political channels.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/interviews/womack.html

**************
A) Shelby in the pocket of Drug Kingpin Lobbyists?
Click Below

http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/col-info/1999.11/msg00031.html

B)Drug Kingpins Connection Into Oakland?Linked to Hanks family.Click Below...

http://www.shipguide.com/press/trapress/tra-11-13-96.html

C) Info Site For Drug War Madness/ Great Site!

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/wardrugs.html

D) This Government Site is where you go to find the
list of the Specially Designated Narcotic Trafficers.
Click Below...

http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/libs/fac00_fr

E) International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.

http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/statements98_explan.html

F)Carlos Hanks Nafta Bank. Click Below...

http://www.texasobserver.org/03_17_00/000317_nafta_bank.htm

G)Narco News/Photo of Mex Pres Elect Labistidas and Carlos Hank Gonzales together...***Forbes 500...

http://www.narconews.com/fraud1994.html

H) Drug Politics Involve Clinton...

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/05/13/NARCO.html

I)Oral Deposition of Richard Brenneke/CIA and Drugs...

http://www.anaserve.com/~wethepeople/brenneke.htm

J) Mexican Narco Power/Hank Family Intrigues...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/etc/script.html

K) Narco General Case.

http://www.tni.org/drugs/folder3/fazio.htm

L) John Gotti/CIA/Mena Airport,Arkansas...

CIA Launders Narco Dollars for the MOB/Deposition...

http://www.radio4all.org/pfp/mob.htm

M) AP Story below shows how Drug kingpins get protection.

DECEMBER 05, 19:13 EST
Rule for Firms Accused of Drug Ties
By KEN GUGGENHEIM
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) <ETH> Businesses that are fined or have assets blocked because of alleged links to foreign drug bosses should be allowed to appeal the
penalties to a judge, an independent commission recommended. The five-lawyer panel recommended changes to the Foreign Drug Kingpin Designation Act, a year-old law that allows the Treasury Department to
freeze U.S. assets of foreign drug traffickers and penalize any company that does business with them.Supporters of the law see it as an
important new weapon in the fight against drug trafficking. Civil libertarians and foreign officials worried, however, that innocent companies could be fined or
have assets blocked without having the opportunity to defend themselves. ``Balancing the needs of law enforcement in combating these forces with the due process protections of U.S.businesses and citizens who may unwittingly do business with them is a delicate and never-ending challenge,'' the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control
said in an interim report issued Monday. A final report is due in January. Under the law, people designated drug kingpins by the president have their U.S. assets blocked. Twelve suspected traffickers were placed on the list in June. The law also allows the Treasury Department to prepare a ``Tier II'' list of foreign companies linked to drug traffickers. Any company on
this list <ETH> none has been designated so far <ETH> would also have its U.S. assets blocked, and U.S. companies would be barred from doing business
with them. Under current law, foreign companies can't appeal orders blocking assets, and U.S. companies can't appeal civil penalties they receive fordoing
business with a ``Tier II'' company. The review commission, created under the kingpin legislation, recommended creation of an administrative
review system to allow appeals. Those rulings could then be further appealed in the federal court system.
``By allowing judicial review of Tier II designations by the Secretary of the Treasury in the manner the commission recommends, Congress would
strengthen the domestic and international business communities' faith in the integrity and fairness of the process,'' the report said. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a major supporter of the kingpin legislation, said through a spokeswoman
that he hasn't a had chance yet to review the report, but ``we're going to monitor this closely.'' Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control would not comment on the report on the ground that it is under review. Among
other recommendations by the commission, chaired by Atlanta attorney Larry Thompson, were clarifying the standards for Tier II designations, preventing assets
from being blocked during investigations and reviewing criminal penalties <ETH> now maximum sentences of 30 years and $10 million fines. Rachel King of the American Civil Liberties Union said the report's
recommendations were ``excellent.'' ``The main reason why we opposed it from a civil liberties perspective was its eliminating judicial review,'' she said.
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Note:Transportacion Maritima Mexicana (TMM), a Shipping Company in Oakland has links to the powerful Hank Family of Mexico.

Reno Contradicts U.S. Drug Report
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jamie Dettmer
dettmer [at] insightmag.com
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U.S. drug warriors say Justice has undermined a key drug probe and fear that the department will prove weak in enforcing a new law aimed at squeezing narcotraffickers. The wording could not have been more direct and yet within weeks of the highly classified National Drug Intelligence Center, or NDIC, report
being leaked to the media ‹ first to Insight in March 1999 and then later to the Washington Post ‹ the allegations it contained against Mexico1s powerful
Hank family were being 3discredited2 by Attorney General Janet Reno.
       Despite detailed allegations contained in the report, Reno dismissed it, writing in a March letter: 3The analysis and any conclusions and inferences contained in the report have not been adopted as official views and positions of the NDIC, the Department of Justice, or the various federal,
state and local law-enforcement and regulatory authorities that may have provided information to the drafters of the report.2
       The Hank family greeted Reno1s statement as amounting to having been given a clean bill of health. For a year the family has been fighting the NDIC claim that they pose a 3significant criminal threat to the United States.2
       For years lawmen on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border frequently had been confronted with information suggesting that billionaire Mexican power broker Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his two sons were using their political and financial muscle to protect Mexico1s major narcotraffickers, including the Arellano-Felix brothers in Tijuana as well as the Juarez drug cartel. But dozens of probes launched by U.S.and Mexican
law-enforcement authorities, including one mounted in 1996 by Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo, went nowhere. They were doomed from the start say
investigators, who claim they were unable to cut through webs of intrigue and patronage surrounding the family.
       But there was cautious optimism among agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, and the U.S. Customs Service when 3Operation White Tiger2 was launched in 1997 amid much secrecy. Their
mission: to pull together as much data as they could on the Hank family and to expose a key relationship underpinning Mexico1s narcotrafficking ‹ the alleged association between the country1s drug barons and top Mexican politicians, including former Mexican Cabinet minister Hank and his sons, Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge Hank Rhon.
       Leaks south of the border imperiled the chances of Operation White Tiger being successful; so, too, did nervousness in Washington among federal agency heads, who learned in the 1990s to step gingerly with drug investigations that could have a political impact on U.S.-Mexican relations and might anger the White House.
       And so frustrated agents released dozens of pages of their intelligence analysis on the Hanks1 businesses, sweetheart deals, political strokes and alleged links with drug barons. A year later
law-enforcement frustration has grown, say U.S. drug warriors, who declined to go on the record for this article.
       They also question whether a new drug-kingpin law that obliges the federal government annually to name the world1s top suspected narcotraffickers and to seize their assets in the United States, as well as those of their business associates, will be as effective as it could if the Justice Department is unprepared to put the war against drugs ahead of politics.
       For them, the Hank case and the demise of Operation White Tiger is instructive when assessing the prospects of the Foreign Drug Kingpin
Designation Act, which was approved last year and requires the administration to provide Congress with an annual list ofthe suspected top foreign drug traffickers.
       In early June, the Clinton administration sent Congress the first annual blacklist under the act, naming a dozen suspected drug barons,
including six Mexicans: Ramon and Benjamin Arrellano-Felix, Jose de Jesus, Luis Ignacio Amexcua-Contreras,Rafael Caro-Quintero and Vicente
Carrillo-Fuentes.
       Following the media revelations about Operation White Tiger, the Hank family, which has denied it is linked to or protecting top Mexican narcotraffickers, lobbied the Justice Department. With the assistance
of Republican former U.S. senator Warren Rudman, whom Carlos Hank Rhon hired to represent his interests in Washington, Hank secured from Reno the March letter contradicting the NDIC analysis.
       3It was determined that the subject matter of the report was beyond the substantive expertise and area of responsibility for the NDIC, and the project was terminated,2 Reno wrote.
       The attorney general1s retraction of an intelligence analysis based on dozens of past investigations on the Hank family and on new lines of inquiry came as a bitter disappointment to members of the San
Diego-based Operation White Tiger Task Force.
       The Hanks and their supporters insist that Reno1s intervention was just and that they have been victims of innuendo spread by their political and business rivals.
       From the get-go agents involved in the probe feared that Washington would conclude that Operation White Tiger was too controversial and potentially too disruptive to Mexican-American relations for it to continue. They suspected it would go the way of previous investigations of top Mexican politicians. In their minds was a series of probes launched by individual DEA special agents in charge before the signing of the controversial North American Free Trade
Agreement. Those investigations encountered strong Washington disapproval, say former agents Phil Jordan and Hector Berrellez.
       Far from lacking substance, agents involved in the inquiry say that financial investigations and information supplied by confidential sources established that Hank family 3businesses, corporations and entities,
are linked to the major drug-trafficking organizations.2
       The task force scrutinized an array of business dealings as well as every tie the Hanks ever had with convicted or suspected narcotraffickers ‹ from friendships to joint ownership of businesses,
including the suspected drug-linked commercial airline Taesa and the cargo-shipping firm Transportacion Maritima Mexicana, or TMM.
       According to Operation White Tiger documents, agents also explored allegations made by confidential sources of Carlos Hank1s laundering money through two family-owned Texas banks ‹ the Laredo National Bank and the South Texas National Bank of Laredo ‹ and allegations that Jorge Hank Rhon is 3providing the service of laundering narcotics proceeds2 via the
family-owned Agua Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana and off-track gaming interests on both sides of the Southwest border. 3Through Jorge Hank Rhon1s gambling casino and satellite wagering operations the AFO [Arellano Felix organization] is able to effectively launder [sic] millions of cash dollars made from the
narcotics trade, 2 states one document.
       The Hank family1s response to the allegations against it was immediate and furious and has been unrelenting. At least one major Mexican daily newspaper spiked a follow-up article written by its Washington correspondent after the family intervened with the paper1s owner. Other publications were threatened with legal action, including a small
California-based Latino magazine, El Andar, which several months after Insight1s exposé also secured copies of the NDIC report and published a major article. An attorney acting for the Hank-owned Laredo
National Bank of Texas demanded a retraction, an apology and $10 million for legal fees and expenses.
       Even so, Rudman is adamant the report is 3hogwash.2 Explaining that Carlos Hank Rhon is a friend of his, the former senator, who is on the
President1s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, says he was asked to take a look at it to see what he thought. 3I told them I thought it was spurious. I did a lot of due diligence on it and I can tell you Carlos Hank Rhon is not a drug smuggler.2 He added: 3My representation was very narrow, I looked at it, thought it was dubious and wrote to Reno asking her what she thought. Three months later she released her
letter discrediting the report. I am pleased at what I did. You know the sections dealing with the Texas banks, for example, were drawn from open sources down in Mexico where a lot of people have an axe to grind. I
think this report was a misuse of the process.2
       Both in Mexico and the United States the Hank family has lobbied hard, denying the allegations against them and claiming someone is out to get them. Rudman told Copley News Service recently that he is
conducting his own investigation into the leak of the NDIC report, which Justice Department officials claim was written by an NDIC official who eventually was fired after it was disclosed to someone at the Army War
College and then leaked to the media. In fact, the analysis was based on the work of many hands and several agencies. Asked by Insight whether there
were factual error in the analysis, Justice Department spokesman Chris Whatney said: 3The letter speaks for itself.2
       Now both the Hank family and the Mexican government are targeting the new drug-kingpin law, coauthored by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein
of California, arguing that the administration could declare erroneously that certain individuals are doing business with drug cartels and freeze their assets. Feinstein disputes this, explaining that a special
commission will monitor the law as it is enforced.
       But some veteran U.S. drug warriors, dismayed by the whole Hank case, say Justice has been hoodwinked and fear that it may prove timid when
it comes to enforcing the new law on foreign kingpins.

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Grupo TMM--Transportacion Maritima Mexicana operating out of the Port
Of Oakland.

http://www.tmm.com.mx/esp/english/Default.asp

End Trans...