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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| AP Exclusive: $205M man says he sold meth chemical |
| 2009-10-27 |
| A Chinese-Mexican businessman arrested after police found a $205 million stash of cash in his Mexico City mansion has told U.S. prosecutors he sold tons of a chemical used to make methamphetamine on the black market, a top Mexican official told The Associated Press. Zhenli Ye Gon's lawyers, who are fighting efforts to extradite him to Mexico from the United States, vehemently deny their client admitted anything illegal and call the report misinformation intended to sway public opinion against him. The case against Ye Gon burst open in March 2007 when police raided his house in Mexico City's fanciest neighborhood and found more than $205 million in cash -- mostly in $100 bills -- stuffed into a closet and a wall. It was the largest drug-related cash seizure in history. Two months after the interview, Ye Gon was arrested at a restaurant in Maryland and charged in U.S. federal court with conspiracy to import drugs into the United States. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out the case in August after one prosecution witness recanted and another refused to testify. Sullivan, who had criticized prosecutors for taking months to reveal the witness problems, ordered that Ye Gon never be charged in the U.S. again. He remains in a prison in suburban Washington as he battles extradition. Prosecutors in Mexico believe their case is much stronger because they won't have to prove Ye Gon conspired to move the drugs into the United States. Mexican prosecutors are hoping Ye Gon's conversations with U.S. prosecutors can be used as evidence in Mexico. Why not deport him to China? I hear they handle drug dealers ... The accusations revolve around 96 tons of chemicals Ye Gon imported from China in 2005 and 2006. Ye Gon, who owned a pharmaceutical factory west of Mexico City, told the AP that import records prove they were legitimate chemicals intended for use in cold medicines. Mexican prosecutors say he never made any medicine, instead using his factory to transform the chemicals into pseudoephedrine and selling it to drug gangs for hundreds of millions of dollars for use in the manufacture of methamphetamine. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #4 Procopius2k , The dollar isn't that safe any more either. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2009-10-27 13:37 |
| #3 Why not deport him to China? I hear they handle drug dealers ... The Chicoms would probably give him a hero's welcome. Yes, they shoot druggies in China but I doubt if they have any qualms about exporting the $h!t to our country. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-10-27 12:08 |
| #2 found more than $205 million in cash -- mostly in $100 bills -- stuffed into a closet and a wall. Safer there than in the stock market or in derivative bonds, and the banks that love them. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-27 11:09 |
| #1 stuffed into a closet and a wall Sounds like insulation to me. Was it treated to be flame-retardent? |
| Posted by: Spot 2009-10-27 08:16 |