FBI Director Robert Mueller made an unannounced visit to Mexico on Wednesday and met with President Vicente Fox, Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and other top law enforcement officials. In his first visit to Mexico as FBI director, Mueller discussed issues related to terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, environmental crimes, fugitives, contraband and auto theft, according to statements by the U.S. Embassy and the Mexico's Attorney General's Office. Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, and the director of Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation, Genaro Garcia Luna, also participated in meetings with Mueller, who arrived in Mexico City in the morning and left several hours later. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza also met with the FBI director, whose visit was not made public until after he had left. | Interesting, that. Official visits are normally announced to get press coverage. |
Fox spokesman Augustin Gutierrez confirmed that the president met behind closed doors with Mueller, who was appointed FBI director on Sept. 4, 2001. He refused to disclose what was said at that meeting. In its statement, the federal Attorney General's office said Macedo de la Concha and Mueller discussed a wide array of topics, including the threat of terrorism and the need to tighten laws to better combat organized criminals who work in tandem with terrorists. Also discussed was the FBI's advisory role in the Mexican federal government's investigation of 10-plus years of unsolved slayings of women in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, according to the statement. | Current count is over 340 dead. They keep jailing people and claim it's solved but the bodies keep turning up. |
Mueller told the Mexican attorney general that recent changes in U.S. law have made it easier for that country's numerous law enforcement agencies to work more closely together, it said. |