2.25 tons of cash seized in Mexico City from global drug ring

Update below.

Mexican authorities report they have confiscated more than $200 million in U.S. currency from a luxury home in Mexico City. The stash of mostly $100 bills weighed over 4,500 pounds, apparent revenues from the sale of meth in the United States by a drug ring allegedly run by a naturalized Mexican citizen of Chinese descent. Two Chinese nationals were among the seven arrested during the raid.

Mexican officials say the drug traffickers purchased the drug's raw materials, pseudoephedrine acetate, in India, imported these chemicals illegally to China, then shipped them to Mexico where they were processed into meth and finally smuggled into and sold in the U.S. The proceeds from these sales were then transported back into Mexico, mainly in $10 and $20 bills, before being converted into Benjamins.

If confirmed, it would be the largest seizure of drug trafficking assets in history.

(More photos of the raid courtesy of the Mexican attorney general's office.)

Update (7/2/7/2007)

In the months following this report, the alleged ringleader, Zhenli Ye Gon, has claimed that the money confiscated in his home had nothing to do with the illegal drug trade.

Instead, Ye Gon has fingered the heads of the ruling political party in Mexico, the PAN, saying they blackmailed him into using his home as a vault for safekeeping millions of dollars in illegal campaign funds.

Ye Gon, who has filed for political asylum in the U.S., was arrested earlier this week in Wheaton, Maryland. His girlfriend was also detained this week in Las Vegas. Ye Gon's wife was one of the seven detained during the initial raid of his Mexico home.