US drug war crackdown misses the money
TIJUANA, Mexico - Every day, criminals shove proceeds from U.S. drug sales in their shoes, tape it to their torsos, stash it under dashboards - or just wire it electronically to Mexico. It all adds up to $25 billion a year.
A highly touted U.S. Treasury Department program aimed at starving Mexican drug cartels of that cash is currently blocking just $3 million, an Associated Press investigation has found.
That’s in addition to $58 million seized under a new initiative at the U.S.-Mexico border. The figures suggest that $99.75 of every $100 the cartels ship south is getting through - money that is fueling a brutal war that has killed 14,000 people in three years.
Bundles of $100 bills that add up to billions are sneaked in each year and then laundered into ostensibly legitimate funds at car dealerships, banks, pharmacies, restaurants and resorts.
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