MEXICO
CITY, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Mexico's president on Thursday welcomed a proposal to
give the alleged fortune of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to
the country's indigenous people, and said the wealth of Mexican criminals in
the United States should be returned to Mexico.
Jose
Luis Gonzalez Meza, a lawyer for Guzman, said this week his client had proposed
that billions of dollars in revenue that U.S. authorities had attributed to his
business operations should be handed to indigenous communities in Mexico.
Speaking
at his regular morning news conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,
who earlier this year announced the creation of a "Robin Hood"
institute to return ill-gotten wealth to the Mexican people, gave his approval
to the idea.
"I
liked the declaration. I don't know if it's true, I can't verify it, but if
it's as it came out in the media, that a lawyer says Guzman wants his wealth to
be given to Mexico's indigenous communities, I think it's good," he said.
"Also,
we have started a process because we want everything that's confiscated in the
United States from criminals or suspected criminals from Mexico is returned to
Mexico," he added.
Lopez
Obrador, a veteran leftist who took office in December, gave few details on the
initiative beyond saying that his government would undertake "all
necessary legal actions" to go after such money in the United States due
to Mexicans.
The
initiative may raise eyebrows in the administration of U.S. President Donald
Trump, who ran for office vowing to close the border to criminals and drugs
from Mexico, and accused the country of taking advantage of the United States
on trade.
In
July, U.S. authorities sought a court order requiring Guzman to forfeit $12.7
billion made from his drug-running career after his conviction this year for
racketeering and drug trafficking crimes.
Lawyer
Gonzalez Meza told Reuters that while Guzman, 62, had never admitted to having
earned the billions, he was of the view that whatever money the U.S.
authorities were referring to should be sent back to Mexico and distributed
there.
"He
says, well, if that money exists ... that money does not belong to the United
States; it belongs to Mexico," he said, arguing that because the
cultivation and harvesting of the drugs had taken place in Mexico, the proceeds
belonged there.
Guzman,
who is being held in a maximum security prison in Colorado, put forward the
idea during phone calls with his mother and sisters in August, Gonzalez Meza
said.
"And
he asks for President Lopez Obrador to allocate (the money) to the indigenous
communities," he added.
Mexico's
indigenous population is among the poorest in the country, and a cause close to
Lopez Obrador's heart.
In
the 1970s, the president worked among the indigenous people of his native state
of Tabasco in southern Mexico. He has vowed to give priority to the poor in his
administration. (Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Richard Chang)
Culled from: YahooNews
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