BOMBSHELL: Banco Azteca, Mexican Bank Long Reported To Be Used By Drug Cartels, Flew $26M In Cash Over US-Mexico Border Directly To Eric Hovde’s Bank
MADISON, Wis. — A bombshell report this morning from Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that Banco Azteca, a bank reportedly tied to the Mexican cartel flew $26 million of cash across the U.S.-Mexico Border to Eric Hovde’s bank in California.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed, Banco Azteca was cut off by several other U.S. banks over “risk and compliance concerns” after reporting linked it to cartel activity. An executive of the bank was recently implicated in a federal indictment detailing his attempts to bribe a member of the U.S. Congress to get U.S. banks to once again do business with the bank. Despite this, Eric Hovde’s bank flew $26 million of cash from Mexico City to Irvine, California as part of a deal with Banco Azteca last December.
This shocking revelation comes as Hovde has refused to disclose which foreign banks and governments his bank has done millions of dollars of business with. What else is Hovde hiding?
Read more below:
By: Dan Bice
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Banco Azteca, the 10th largest financial institution in Mexico, has had its share of problems in recent years.
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Accused in past news stories of having links to the Mexican drug cartel.
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Dropped as a financial partner by some U.S. banks because of “risk and compliance concerns.”
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And now caught up in a Texas bribery scheme with an American congressman.
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But Sunwest Bank, the Utah-based financial institution run by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, doesn’t mind doing business with it.
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In December, Banco Azteca sent $26.2 million in cash to Sunwest on four airplane flights as part of a massive currency conversion called “repatriation,” records show. Hovde, who is running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, is chairman and CEO of Sunwest.
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Now Democrats are questioning the deal, saying it gives voters a window into how Hovde runs his businesses by putting personal financial stakes above other issues.
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Arik Wolk, spokesman of the Democratic Party, said Sunwest’s transactions with Banco Azteca are “extraordinarily concerning,” especially given the alleged past ties between Azteca and the drug cartel. He added, however, that Democrats were not suggesting Hovde or Sunwest had done anything illegal.
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“Hovde is willing to do anything to enrich himself, even flying cash across the border for a bank suspected of working for criminal groups that are pouring deadly fentanyl into our state,” Wolk claimed.
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As recently as 2021, Banco Azteca had no correspondent banks in the U.S. with which it could transfer U.S. currency.
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Over the past decade, several news accounts, including two by Reuters, have drawn links between Banco Azteca and Mexican gangs, which are the leading suppliers of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and other illicit narcotics to the U.S.
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In 2023, a Reuters reporter wrote that drug cartels are using remittances – money transfers favored by migrant workers – to send illicit earnings back to Mexico.
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The Reuters reporter said he witnessed five individuals on motorcycles collecting cash from people leaving branch offices of three banks, including Banco Azteca. Locals said these were couriers for the Sinaloa Cartel picking up drug money sent as remittances.
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In a 2014 story, Reuters quoted a prominent anti-kidnapping activist saying Mexican gangs involved in kidnapping migrants ask for the money to be sent to Banco Azteca. Also, the Yale Journal of International Affairs reported that Banco Azteca was one of four banks that the Mexican cartel was using to process extortion payments.
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A little more than a decade ago, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency investigated Banco Azteca’s ties with its then-correspondent bank in the U.S., Lone Star National Bank of Pharr, and turned up money-laundering concerns. Repeatedly cited and fined, Lone Star soon ended its relationship with Banco Azteca.
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Other financial institutions, including Fifth Third Cincinnati and CBW Bank, soon followed.
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According to a May story in the Wall Street Journal, Banco Azteca has struggled doing business with U.S. banks since regulators began enforcing rules cracking down on money laundering from drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. Many U.S. banks have cut ties with Banco Azteca because of “risk and compliance concerns.”
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For years, that left Banco Azteca holding onto large sums of U.S. currency with no place to offload it.
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