Double Handshake

One of life’s joys is the Wall Street Journal’s front-page middle column,* often quirky news stories ranging from belly-dancing to gator wrestling. Yesterday’s gem was “For Sale: One Leopard-Skin Rolex and Maybe Some Frozen Sharks,” a piece about Mexico’s Asset Administration and Disposal Service (SAE), which is tasked with getting rid of the emerald-encrusted pistols and albino tigers from the estates of Scarface-esque drug lords when they are arrested.

The article spends a number of paragraphs looking at the case of  Zhenli Ye Gon, a Chinese-Mexican businessman (born in Shanghai, Mexican citizen since 2002) who was arrested in the US in 2007 on charges on producing a precursor to methamphetamine. Ye stands accused of acquiring crystal meth ingredients through his pharmaceutical company and has been linked to the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. However, in January of this year, US authorities were getting ready to drop charges of Ye for lack of evidence. Ye’s lawyers are fighting to keep him from being extradited to Mexico to face similar charges.

When Ye was arrested in 2007, what did SAE find at his Mexico City house? Not as exciting as underground hot-tub lairs and exotic menageries, but lots of cash. 207 million US dollars; 18 million Mexican pesos; 200,000 euros; 113,000 Hong Kong dollars; Mexican gold bullion and “a great amount” of jewels. The picture at right is only a portion. It was hidden in a secret room behind his dressing-room mirror. Ye has claimed most of that money is part of a political party slush fund. Versace dinnerware, Baccarat wine glasses and Lalique Champagne flutes were still in boxes, having recently been shipped there.

So, how is the estate being dealt with since Ye’s arrest? From the WSJ:

His (Ye’s) lawyers also say they are pleased with the SAE’s stewardship of Mr. Ye’s property, which their client can recoup if his name is cleared. But they are less happy that the Mexican government already spent the $205 million seized from him, as is permitted under Mexican law.

The globalized drug trade can put SAE agents in tricky diplomatic situations. When a delegation of Chinese investigators interested in the case came to Mexico, Victor Aznar, a senior SAE official, said it was all he could do to keep the Chinese from pocketing dragon statuettes and other objects during a tour of the house.

“They kept pleading with me that it was evidence they needed to take back to China,” says Mr. Aznar. “I politely told them, ‘no.’ ”

Nice. “Well, you see, we need this jade dragon as, um, evidence because Mr. Ye was once a citizen of our country, and China is directly affected by a case involving an arrest of a Mexican citizen in the US.” I don’t get it. And since when is it legal for the Mexican government to spend your US$200 million before being found guilty of a crime, I wonder? If he is acquitted, the man gets to keep his dinnerware and dragon statues but not his money?

*Now more of a below-the-fold teaser under Murdoch, but same principle.

Images: WSJ, Wikipedia

A few noteworthy links out there:

China becomes Brazil’s top trade partner – AP reports that China has surpassed the US as Brazil’s biggest trade partner, with trade last month reaching US$3.2 billion, compared to US$2.8 billion between the US and Brazil. Brazil is China’s biggest trade partner in Latin America, with soy and iron being the top Brazilian exports.

The Beijing-Havana connection – Yinghong Cheng at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington DC think tank, published a good piece on China and Cuba: Beijing and Havana: Political Fraternity and Economic Patronage. Cheng describes China’s investment in the island “a massive economic blood transfusion” to ensure it has a strategic partner in the region.

China: Quarantines ‘proper and necessary’ – China Daily has the country’s latest reaction in its ongoing row with Mexico over the quarantine measures it began taking over the weekend (H/t Danwei). Chinese netizens have made their opinon known on the matter:

A poll by major information portal Sina.com showed that 92.5 percent of 4,263 online users said the quarantine was “a necessary preventive method and had nothing to do with discrimination”.

Chinese-Mexican relations took a few shots on the chin over the weekend over the Asian country’s dealing with the Swine Flu threat. In China, where the memory of SARS looms large, Mexican citizens have been quarantined based on nationality and flights between the countries have been suspended. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa criticized China for what she called a discriminatory quarantine set up in Hong Kong as well.

I was off gallivanting in Trujillo, in Northern Peru this weekend, and am only now getting caught up to speed. Luckily, the venerable James Fallows has followed the story and has predictably added a few great insights. He relays a Wall Street Journal report filed over the weekend of Mexican citizens in Beijing also forced into quarantine:

According to accounts from Mexicans in the hotel, Mexican travelers arriving on various flights from Mexico and the U.S. were singled out by health officials who boarded the aircraft wearing white protective suits, masks and rubber gloves. They led away Mexican passport holders. Several travelers said Chinese television camera crews surprised them at the doors of their aircraft as they emerged. They said the filming continued through the windows of an isolation ward at the Beijing Ditan infectious diseases hospital.

“We felt like we were in a zoo,” said Angel Yamil Silum, a 27-year-old business student, who arrived in Beijing with his girlfriend Saturday en route to Bangkok for a holiday, and ended up at Ditan and then the Guo Men Hotel.

I think the above quote best captures the real danger of this situation: How the detainees were detained. Families were paraded out of airplanes as fellow passengers openly gawked. Business men were woken up with flashlights from their hotel beds. The conditions of the hotels used for quarantines have been described as “fairly rundown,” serving such appetizing meals as this. John Pomfret of The Washington Post wonders whether or not China would have treated people from developed countries in the same way.

I think most reasonable people are willing to put up with some amount of discomfort and illogic (ie. detainment based on one’s passport) in the face of an unfamiliar epidemic. Certainly no one would expect a stay in the Four Seasons during a quarantine, but can’t China do a little better than this? If SARS taught the country anything, shouldn’t it have been how to quarantine someone with an amount of open communication and decency?

Stop press: Just as I was set to publish this, I came across this dispatch from the Metropark Hotel in Hong Kong (quarantine site). In fairness, it looks like some of the conditions are improving there. Let’s hope they continue to do so.

Image: The Daily Mail