Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday proposed a new law to confiscate property gained through organized crime, amid escalating drug violence and a deadly grenade attack on national day celebrations this week.
“It’s clear that to stop crime, police action is not enough. It’s essential to attack the sources of its economic power, through the application of effective laws,” Calderon said in a statement.
“The aim is to convincingly hit organized crime, drug traffickers, thieves, kidnappers and, in general, anyone who commits a criminal act which deeply offends society,” he said.
Calderon said he would distribute confiscated funds in damages and assistance to crime victims.
He said he would present the law, part of a series of reforms of the penal system, to Congress.
Violence has spiked across Mexico since Calderon, who took office at the end of 2006, launched a crackdown on drug trafficking and related crime, including the deployment of more than 36,000 soldiers nationwide.
Almost 3,000 people have been killed so far this year — more than in all of last year — including a string of gruesome slayings and beheadings.
Calderon also said on Thursday that he was setting up a reward system for citizens who collaborate with authorities to help arrest criminals.
The new measures built on accords from a national security summit at the end of last month, set up in response to public anger over rising kidnappings and insecurity, he said.
Several hundred thousand people demonstrated across Mexico shortly after the summit to call for tougher measures on crime.
Seven people were killed and 108 wounded in grenade attacks on independence day celebrations late on Monday in Calderon’s home state, sparking fears that civilians were now targets in the country’s drug wars.
Authorities said that they suspected possible drug gang involvement in the independence day attacks.
Meanwhile, The Mexican army seized US$26.2 million from a house in northwestern Sinaloa state in the second largest cash haul in the country’s history, a defense ministry official said on Thursday.
The army found 890 packets of cash in a house during a routine patrol in Culiacan, the state capital, general Luis Arturo Oliver told a news conference.
Soldiers searched the house after three men fled it on seeing them approach.
More than 36,000 soldiers are deployed nationwide, including in the major drug trafficking state of Sinaloa, as part of a federal crackdown on drug trafficking and related crime.
Sinaloa is home to one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico, founded by fugitive leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
In the largest ever cash haul, Mexican police seized US$205 million in March last year in a Mexico City suburb.
That money belonged to a Mexican businessman of Chinese origin, Zhenli Ye Gon, who is detained in the US.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
RSS