Pubdate: Sat, 14 Mar 2009
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2009 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/formnewsroom
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Adriana Gomez Licon

MEXICO ANGRY THAT DRUG LORD JOAQUIN "EL CHAPO" GUZMAN ON FORBES BILLIONAIRES
LIST

EL PASO -- Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, alleged leader of the Sinaloa
drug cartel, can strike fear into the hearts of drug-dealing
adversaries.

Now, his listing in Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires is
evoking anger among politicians and citizens alike.

President Felipe Calderon said Thursday that "magazines are not only
attacking and lying about the situation in Mexico but are also
praising criminals."

Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said Forbes is defending
crime by "comparing the deplorable activity of a criminal wanted in
Mexico and abroad with that of honest businessmen."

Reaction was strong in the United States, too.

"I am disappointed that the publishers of Forbes would glamorize the
activities of one of the world's most notorious criminals by featuring
him alongside other business leaders engaged in lawful enterprise,"
said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

Joseph Arabit, special agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement
Administration in El Paso, said Guzman is an international drug trafficker.

"I think that him appearing on Forbes, in a sense, glamorizes the
trafficking trade," Arabit said.

Forbes ranked Guzman No. 701 in the world, with an estimated fortune
of $1 billion. The estimated size of his bank account is based on U.S.
government data and analysis of the drug trade.

That data found that Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered
between $18 billion and $29 billion in proceeds from drug shipments to
the United States in 2008. About 20 percent of that total supposedly
belonged to Guzman's operation.

Forbes editors did not respond to a phone message and an e-mail
requesting comment on their inclusion of Guzman.

Roberto Rodriguez Hernandez, consul general of Mexico in El Paso, said
Forbes had no reliable data by which it could proclaim Guzman a
billionaire.

"It is impossible to really estimate the assets, the goods, because
his activities are illegal. It is like counting fish in the sea,"
Rodriguez Hernandez said.

In his view, only a court or police in charge of investigating money
laundering could determine the truth about Guzman's wealth.

FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons had a different view. "If you think
of him as a CEO of a multibillion-dollar business, it is not
surprising," she said of his inclusion on the list.

Victor Hugo Aguilar Gaxiola, a professor at the Autonomous University
of Sinaloa in Culiacan, Mexico, said Forbes erred in placing the
Mexican smuggler on its list. Aguilar Gaxiola said he would not
estimate the trafficker's fortune because he thinks not even Guzman
knows. "It's like counting fish in the sea," he said.

East-Central city Rep. Emma Acosta said Guzman should not be on the
list of billionaires because his fortune was made in organized crime.

"He is surely not someone who we would like our youth to look up to in
Forbes' list, even if he was number one. It is not a legal operation,
not a legal empire," she said.

Acosta said Forbes list glorifies a criminal whose operations have
taken many lives, not only because of the violence but also because of
the people addicted to the drugs he traffics.

Guzman is Mexico's most-wanted man. The U.S. government is offering a
$5 million reward for his capture. In 2001, he used a laundry cart to
escape the Puente Grande prison in Guadalajara, Mexico.

He is not the first drug dealer to make the magazine's list. In 1999,
Forbes ranked Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar seventh with a fortune
of $8 billion to $10 billion.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin