Loret on Money Laundering

This from last week:

If there is no financial war, there is no war. The frontal attack on drug trafficking, wielded by President Calderón since the beginning of his term as a legitimacy strategy and an emblem of his government, has lacked throughout this time a fundamental ingredient.

For public viewing, we see arrested cartel leaders, lieutenants, chiefs of hit men, hit men, financial operators, city bosses, corrupt officials, falcons, soup-makers, high and low-caliber weapons, fake uniforms, radio communication equipment, armored cars, bricks of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, but almost never --expect in that memorable case of the "Chinese" Zhenli Ye Gon-- large quantities of money nor bank accounts with juicy balances.

The UN calculates that Mexican drug traffickers launder $30 billion per year in Mexico. The government doesn't know where that money is and, what's worse, it doesn't seem to be looking for it.

This column and other similar complaints presumably led to the Tuesday news story that I wrote about yesterday. It's not an adequate response.