Murder of former president's brother takes strange twists

[Rose Siding]

MEXICO CITY - The mystery surrounding the death of Mexican businessman Enrique Salinas took some bizarre twists Wednesday - as if the murder of a brother of a former Mexican president wasn't strange enough.

The attorney general's office in Mexico state, where Salinas' body was found Monday with a plastic bag over his head, released a letter in Salinas' handwriting that described a long struggle against money laundering allegations. Officials provided no explanation for the four-sentence letter, however, except to say it strengthened the investigation.

Mexican newspapers reported that Salinas, whose brother Carlos was president from 1988 to 1994, had been cremated Tuesday, an apparent violation of Mexican law, which prohibits the practice in the case of homicide victims.

And a Mexican official confirmed that France was investigating Salinas for allegedly illicit bank transactions that helped another brother hide millions in European bank accounts. Alejandro Ramos Flores, the federal assistant attorney general for judicial and international affairs, said the transactions involved millions of dollars belonging to jailed brother Raul Salinas.
...
Carlos Salinas, the architect of the North American Free Trade Agreement, is widely despised for the economic chaos that reigned at the end of his term...
Raul also was convicted of making false statements and using false documents to hide more than $140 million - now frozen - in U.S. and European banks. Swiss and French authorities suspected the accounts came from money laundering related to drug trafficking but were unable to prove it.

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