Banker tells of huge PRI donations Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Published Saturday, May 29, 1999, in the Miami Herald Banker tells of huge PRI donations Fugitive says $25 million campaign gift `normal' in Mexico By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER Herald Staff Writer Offering a rare glimpse into the back rooms of Mexico's traditionally secretive ruling elite, a fugitive Mexican banker disclosed to The Herald this week that he contributed $25 million to the government party in 1994, including $5 million for President Ernesto Zedillo's campaign. Carlos Cabal Peniche, who is in an Australian prison fighting an extradition request from the Mexican government, said in a letter to The Herald that ``donations of this kind were normal in Mexico . . . It was part of the system between businessmen and politicians. Everyone had to do it.'' Zedillo spokesman Fernando Lerdo de Tejada declined to confirm or deny Cabal Peniche's claim, but stated in a telephone interview Thursday that ``all the contributions to the president's campaign were done within the law.'' While critics have long argued that Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has stayed in power for seven decades with the help of big businessmen who have bankrolled it in exchange for government favors, Cabal Peniche's statement marks an unusual description of the nature and scope of such relations. Owned local business The captured banker, who owned among several businesses the Miami-based Fresh Del Monte Produce Co., made his remarks as the PRI is making an effort to open its campaign donation books to public scrutiny and present a more democratic face for the 2000 elections. The party came under intense criticism following reports of a private banquet hosted in February, 1993, by then-President Carlos Salinas, in which Mexico's 25 wealthiest businessmen were asked to pledge $25 million each for the PRI's 1994 campaign. Cabal Peniche was not among the guests. Cabal Peniche's statements ``will generate new demands that campaign contributions be subject to greater scrutiny,'' said Senator Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, an independent who has led legislative anti-corruption investigations. ``There are more controls over campaign contributions today, but there are still significant loopholes.'' Donation to Zedillo In his statement to The Herald from the Port Phillip Prison in Melbourne, Cabal Peniche said he made huge campaign contributions to the late PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and -- after his March, 1994, death -- an additional donation to the Zedillo campaign. ``My initial involvement in the Colosio campaign donations was to promote and facilitate the delivery of $15 million to the PRI. Zedillo knew about this donation because we was the [Colosio] campaign coordinator,'' Cabal Peniche said. He did not specify whether the money he delivered came from his own pocket. Some sources close to Cabal Peniche say the funds originated from his banks, and were given out as loans to dozens of people, who in turn made the contributions to a campaign fund that Cabal Peniche supervised. ``Later, while Colosio was still alive, I was asked to donate a further $5 million. This second donation was actually delivered after Zedillo had become the candidate,'' Cabal Peniche said. `Pragmatic cooperation' He added that he contributed yet another $5 million to the campaign of Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo, who is vying for the 2000 PRI presidential nomination. Madrazo recently conceded that he had received a donation from Cabal Peniche, but did not state its amount. ``In order to succeed as a businessman in Mexico, you have to develop . . . pragmatic cooperation'' with government party candidates, Cabal Peniche said. ``The whole private sector was dependent on the government for favors and concessions.'' Cabal Peniche, who faces a July 19 extradition hearing in Australia, said in a March telephone interview that he is a victim of political persecution by Zedillo, because he was ``not as enthusiastic about Zedillo's policies as I was about Colosio's.'' Government spokesman Lerdo de Tejada rejected any claims of financial improprieties, or political retributions. Arrested last year Cabal Peniche vanished from public view in 1994, and was arrested in Australia last year. Owner of an agricultural and banking empire in Mexico, he was a key figure in the financial and political scandals that rocked Mexico in the mid 1990s. He made friends with leading figures in the Carlos Salinas presidency, and rose rapidly from relative obscurity to win control of the formerly state-owned Banco Union and Banca Cremi, until his banks were seized by the government in September, 1994. The government charged Cabal Peniche with using his banks to make huge loans to shell companies, which in turn transferred the funds to his personal bank accounts overseas. He was arrested in Australia in November, 1998, and is wanted in Mexico on charges of money laundering and defrauding his banks' clients of up to $700 million. 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