Salinas’ Brother Linked to Drug Money in Swiss Bank

Prosecutors in Mexico and Switzerland confirmed Friday that former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s older brother, who is charged with masterminding last year’s murder of a top politician here, has been linked to tens of millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts that are suspected of being used to launder drug money.

The office of Mexico’s attorney general said the government’s case against Raul Salinas de Gortari was expanded to include possible official corruption after announcing that his wife, Paulina Castanon, and her brother Antonio were arrested by Swiss authorities in Geneva while trying to withdraw more than $83 million in cash from a Swiss bank last week.

Although prosecutors in Bern, Switzerland, did not identify the suspects by name, they said in a statement that the Nov. 15 arrests were part of a continuing investigation by Mexican, Swiss and U.S. authorities “into several Mexican nationals for alleged activities in financing drug trafficking and laundering money from the traffic of drugs.”

The Swiss authorities added that they have frozen bank accounts containing tens of millions of dollars in Geneva and Zurich as part of that probe.

At a briefing in Mexico City, federal prosecutors presented extensive evidence that the former president’s brother used a false name and false identification papers to open at least three bank accounts in Switzerland and to acquire more than a dozen properties in Mexico while serving as an appointee in his brother’s government.

From January, 1991, to April, 1992, when Raul Salinas, now 49, was a senior official in two state corporations, he deposited more than $7 million in those bank accounts, Mexican prosecutors said.

Those accounts were under the name Juan Guillermo Gomez Gutierrez, and Mexican prosecutors released copies of the drivers’ licenses, passports and birth certificates of Raul Salinas and Gomez Gutierrez that bore identical photos, thumbprints and signatures.

They added that Salinas’ wife used some of those fake documents and a power of attorney from Gomez Gutierrez when she attempted to withdraw the money from the Swiss bank last week.

Mexican authorities, who said that until the arrests they had not been aware of the Swiss investigation, handed out copies of the Swiss prosecutors’ statement indicating suspicions that the money in those accounts came from drug sales.

One Mexican prosecutor added, “We have no investigations [into Raul Salinas’ wife] for either drug trafficking or for money laundering. If Geneva authorities show that the money in these accounts could have come from those sources, we will begin investigations.”

In addition to murder, the prosecutor said, Raul Salinas so far has been formally charged with forgery and is under investigation for “illegal enrichment,” a charge equivalent to either embezzlement or extortion. The charge carries a 14-year maximum jail term under Mexico’s legal system.

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“We found that he acquired two properties every year during the decade [he served in public office],” the prosecutor said. “Now, he will have the opportunity to explain the difference between his official declarations [of personal wealth] and what we’ve found. . . . If he can’t, we will charge him with illegal enrichment.”

Since Raul Salinas’ Feb. 28 arrest on murder charges in a case that has become a web of family intrigue, U.S. and Mexican officials privately have said they suspect Raul Salinas was linked to at least one of Mexico’s five powerful drug cartels. He has been seen on several occasions--at restaurants, in an airport and at a private party in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey--with Mexico’s most-wanted alleged drug lord, Juan Garcia Abrego, a Mexican official said.

But the new allegations against the elder Salinas, who has been on trial for several months on charges he ordered and planned the murder last year of Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary general of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, were concrete signs that President Ernesto Zedillo is going after corruption at the highest levels of his predecessor’s government and ending the tradition of immunity from prosecution.

Zedillo declared in his strongest terms yet Friday that no one is above the law.

“My commitment to the law and its application is firm and unequivocal--those in positions of power or privilege who commit crimes against our country deserve greater severity,” Zedillo said in clear reference to the Raul Salinas case. “We will not permit impunity. It must be made clear: In Mexico, there are no ‘untouchables.’ ”

Carlos Salinas, who retired from the presidency last November with the highest popularity ratings in modern Mexican history, left Mexico under a cloud of suspicion soon after his brother’s arrest. News reports have placed him in Canada. Until the scandal surrounding his elder brother erupted, Salinas had won international praise for his model economic reforms here.