August 30, 2001
Ramírez
Names Names of
Spies Against
Narco News
Narco News 2001
Banamex-Narco:
Hernández's
Fears
Dirty
Work by PGR Commanders: "They
Physically
Followed the Journalists"
By Carlos Ramírez
Indicador Político
From
the daily El Financiero of Mexico City
and 24
other Mexican dailies
Translated
by The Narco News Bulletin
Although
he made the biggest deal in the world
by selling Banamex to Citibank for $12.5 billion dollars, the
banker Roberto Hernández Ramírez has a huge worry
that doesn't allow him to enjoy life: Because of reports that
signal that drugs are trafficked on his properties drugs, the
all-powerful banker is afraid every time he has to go to the
United States for business obligations. And he travels to the
U.S. as little as possible.
This negative factor on his daily life
has driven him to by-pass the legal limits. Data obtained by
Indicador Político states that at least two commanders
of the Federal Judicial Police, in the Attorney General's office,
do espionage work for Banamex and the banker Hernandez against
some journalists who have criticized the Banamex-Citibank deal,
and that they have participated in the lawsuit by Hernández
against the internet site www.narconews.com
for having insisted on repeating the revelations of the Yucatán
daily Por Esto! about the drug shipments on the banker's
properties. The work done by the commanders implies that they
physically followed the journalists.
According to the report, commanders with
the last names of Espinosa de Benito and Cárdenas, trusted
aides of Genaro García Luna, director of the Federal Judicial
Police, spied on the journalists. The relationship was established
through Frederico Ponce Rojas, assistant attorney general of
the Republic with Attorney General Ignacio Morales Lechuga during
the presidential term of Carlos Salinas. Today, Ponce is the
legal director of Banamex and a trusted aide of the banker Hernández
for police matters. During his time in the Attorney General's
office, Ponce developed relations with the Federal Judicial Police.
The banker Hernández wanted to
cleanse his worries with the lawsuit against the journalists,
but the lawsuit has failed in every way. He is losing the lawsuit against Narco News. He has brought the daily Por Esto! into
court twice, and both times judges ruled in favor of that media.
The conflict was based on the revelation
in Por Esto! of photographs of drugs that were found on the beaches
of Punta Pájaros, property of the banker Hernández.
The matter has caused unofficial investigations and disturbing
conclusions. On July 26th of this year, the columnist Javier
Ibarrola, with sources among the high ranks of the Army, and
a specialist in National Security, revealed in his column, titled
"Armed Forces," that the Defense Department was irritated
by accusations against military officials for narco-trafficking.
And he wrote a paragraph that shook the central offices of Banamex:
"Why do they only
think in terms of military officials and not subpoena the powerful
businessmen and bankers upon whose properties in Quintana Roo,
according to military sources, grand shipments of cocaine have
been found, as was the case with Punta Pájaros, property
of Roberto Hernández, the powerful owner of Banamex?"
This
information revealed that in there
are investigation files in military archives that prove that
the properties of Hernández were used for narco-trafficking.
In this sense, the banker Hernández
is reluctant to travel to the United States, even though he has
contracted a powerful North American law firm to bring the lawsuit.
The lawsuit by Banamex against Narco News began with affirmations
made in a U.S. university by Al Giordano, an influential journalist
who covers Latin American affairs, and Mario Menéndez
Rodríguez, editor of Por Esto!, about Hernández's
narco-file. Days before the July hearing in New York court, the
www.narconews.com site had to stop publishing.
After the banker's bad luck at the hearing, this Internet page
reopened and continues to cover the issue of Mexican narco-finances.
The matter has also involved the large
North American media, who have been criticized for hiding information
from their readers. Last December, the prestigious columnist
Cynthia Cotts published in her "Press Clips" column
in the Village Voice, one of the most progressive newspapers
in New York, the fact that Sam Dillon, New York Times
correspondent in Mexico, had written about President Clinton's
stay in Mérida, on the properties of Hernández,
but had hidden - in spite of having had the facts in his possession
- the accusations of Hernández's narco-trafficking. Dillon
won the Pulitzer Prize for his texts about the narco in Mexico,
but with many deficiencies and withholdings.
The statements by Cotts, whose column
submits the mass media to critical observation, were severe regarding
Dillon and the Times. She wrote in her column: "In
Mexico, untouchables are people who are protected by the power
they wield. Two of these individuals are Sam Dillon and Roberto
Hernández." According to Por Esto!, Dillon
spoke with the sister of the banker Hernández, "but
did not have the time to speak with the fishermen" that
knew about the drug shipments. "It's the silliest thing
I've ever heard," said Dillon about the accusations against
the Banamex owner, but already the Army's own investigations
had detected "large shipments of cocaine" on the beaches
of Hernández.
The revelations about the Hernández
case have not ended. One of the motives that President Zedillo
had to persecute the Quintana Roo Governor Mario Villanueva,
currently prisoner in the La Palma de Almoloya penitentiary,
was the governor's fight with Hernández. Zedillo protected
Hernández against Villanueva - he brought Clinton to one
of the banker's restored haciendas - and he was rewarded: Zedillo's
house in the Pedregal neighborhood of Mexico City is titled in
the name of Banamex. And there are indications that some of the
revelations by Villanueva could damage Hernández even
more.
Authentic Journalism
that Has All Kinds of "Followers"