The Mexican government, under fire for not doing enough to starve powerful drug dealers of billions in cash, said Tuesday it would limit cash transactions in U.S. dollars as a way to fight money laundering that helps to feed Mexico's spiraling violence.
Mexico's Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero said new rules, to be published Wednesday, will limit dollar bank deposits, the payment of loans and services as well as well as foreign-exchange transactions in cash to between $1,500 and $7,000 a month.
The tightening of banking rules comes as Mexico's government finds itself in an increasingly bloody struggle with the country's powerful and ever more daring drug lords who exert control over large parts of the country. Violence escalated Tuesday as 15 gunmen were killed in a battle with Mexican soldiers in Taxco, a popular tourist town that has become a battleground for rival gangs, and where authorities last month discovered a mass grave in an abandoned silver mine.
On Monday, twelve federal police were killed in an ambush by suspected drug traffickers in the western state of Michoacán who blocked the highway with buses to stop help from reaching the embattled policemen.
More than 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón ordered the military and federal police to battle drug traffickers shortly after assuming the presidency in December of 2006. Since then, Mr. Calderón has come under increasing fire from critics who say his military approach hasn't worked, and should be supplemented by more measures to strip drug traffickers of their financial assets.
"We are protecting our banking system from dollars that might be from illegal sources," Mr. Cordero said at a news conference. "The measures are designed so they don't affect formal, legal economic activity."
Mexican banks receive more than $10 billion a year in suspicious dollar flows in cash that can't be explained by legitimate economic activity, Mr. Cordero said. U.S. analysts say the amount of drug-related cash coming into Mexico from the U.S. could be as high as $29 billion.
Some analysts welcomed the measures as a necessary first step, but others said they were not enough.
Edgardo Buscaglia, who teaches law and economics at Mexico City's ITAM University, said the measures would increase costs to bank clients while doing little to fight money laundering.
He urged the Mexican government to conduct audits on thousands of companies that the U.S. and the European Union have identified as having connections to organized crime.
Under the new rules, individuals can make deposits or payments for up to $4,000 a month through their bank, while those same transactions are limited to $1,500 in the case of foreigners and Mexicans who don't have bank accounts. Cash dollar deposits and payments by businesses will be restricted to those operating in tourist and northern border areas, and limited to $7,000 a month.
Banks will be allowed to continue to sell dollars to the public, Mr. Cordero said. In recent months, a number of banks have restricted or stopped providing cash dollar transactions, including the sale of dollars to the public. The government said it does not expect the new measures to disrupt Mexico's second and third most important sources of foreign currency—remittances and international tourism, Mr. Cordero said.
Mr. Cordero said the rules affecting businesses will take effect after 90 days.
The government also plans to eventually restrict and regulate local currency transactions related to the purchase and sale of real estate and other goods and services in Mexico as part of a broad push against money laundering, Mr. Cordero said.
"Until real-estate purchases are channeled through the financial system, Mexican drug dealers will continue to launder money as was done in Miami during the 1980s," said Alberto Islas, president of Risk Evaluation Ltd., a Mexico City security consulting firm. Mr. Islas said that about 45% of real estate transactions in Mexico are done in cash. "The measures taken are timid."
Douglas Farah, senior fellow at the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center said the Mexican measures would likely be difficult to enforce. "I think it will add a temporary layer of difficulty to attempts to launder dollars in Mexico, but one that will soon likely be circumvented by corruption or narco adaptation," Mr. Farah said.
Mr. Cordero said that Mexico's banks have agreed to expand the number of ATMs in Mexico by 12% this year and provide more credit card and debit card terminals to retail concerns operating in tourism and border areas, reducing the need for cash transactions. Hotels and other retailers will also have to obtain authorization to operate as banking agents to provide foreign exchange services, Mr. Cordero said.
Banking agents are third parties hired by a bank to perform basic financial transactions.
Write to Ken Parks at ken.parks@wsj.com and José de Córdoba at josedecordoba@wsj.com
Source: Wall Street Journal
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