Mexican Political Family Is Threat Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Mexican Political Family Is Threat Tuesday, June 1, 1999; 11:37 p.m. EDT WASHINGTON (AP) --Members of one of Mexico's wealthiest and most politically powerful families pose ``a significant criminal threat to the United States'' because of their role in drug trafficking and money laundering, says a U.S. government report. The report by the National Drug Intelligence Center says Carlos Hank-Gonzalez and his sons, Carlos Hank-Rhon and Jorge Hank-Rhon, are connected with major Mexican drug organizations, according to Wednesday's editions of The Washington Post. Hank-Gonzalez, a powerful member of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and former mayor of Mexico City, has held two cabinet positions in the government of Carols Salinas de Gortari. The report alleges that the family used its businesses to move cocaine into the United States and launder millions of dollars in drug money. Because of its high-level connections, the family was sheltered from law enforcement action, the report said. The Hank family ``poses a significant criminal threat to the United States,'' the report says. ``Its multibillion-dollar criminal and business empire, developed over several decades, reaches throughout Mexico and into the United States.'' The report drew on information from the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, U.S. Customs Service and CIA. It said intelligence agencies had intercepted conversations of the Hank family coordinating drug shipments at the family's shipping company. The investigation was begun in December of 1997 and concluded earlier this year. Spokesmen for the family denied the report to the Post. Mexican officials called the allegations politically motivated. (c) Copyright 1999 The Associated Press ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-06.02.99-09:15:47-14459