Group Iron Ore
 
Mexican drug cartels ‘smuggled 10m tonnes of iron ore to China in 2013’
(Minews) - The Mexican steel industry lost $1 billion last year as a result of illegal iron ore exports to China carried out by drug cartels, according to local steel association, Canacero.

“Last year, [organised] crime exported 10 million tonnes of iron ore to China worth $100 per tonne, or around $1 billion. All this is money laundering,” Canacero president Alonso Ancira Elizondo told journalists in Mexico on Wednesday March 5.

The iron ore volumes were illegally extracted by drug cartels from different sites across the Lázaro Cárdenas port, in the state of Michoacán, he said.

Over the last four years, local drug cartels have illegally extracted and exported around five million tonnes of iron ore per year to China from sites belonging to several steelmakers, Elizondo, who is also chairman at Altos Hornos de México (Ahmsa), said.

“The organised crime has stolen about one million tonnes of iron ore from Ahmsa in 2013. I believe that if the ceo of Sicartsa were here, he could say the same [about iron ore thefts and the lack of security],” he said.

Sicartsa, or Siderúrgica Lázaro Cárdenas Las Truchas, is controlled by ArcelorMittal.
ArcelorMittal Mexico did not comment on the issue.

The Mexican government is fighting against drug cartels in the state of Michoacán.
Earlier this week, Mexican authorities seized 119,000 tonnes of “illegal” iron ore at Lázaro Cárdenas port.

Organised crime has “taken us out of our mines. There are places where we cannot send our workers to”, Elizondo said.
Publish date : Tuesday 11 March 2014 16:32
Story Code: 5231
 
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