Argentinian cabinet chief is accused of having links with Mexican narcos

Aníbal Fernández, President's Cabinet Chief of Argentina, was accused of having ties to Mexican drug traffickers of ephedrine to produce methamphetamine, an accusation that the politician denied and branded as "electioneering" now that he is running for governor of Buenos Aires province.

In an interview with "Periodismo para Todos", an Argentine investigative journalism TV program, Martin Lanatta, a man convicted of killing three businessmen who were linked to Mexican drug traffickers, said that the mastermind of the crime was Fernández.

According to Lanatta, Fernández received bribes to protect Sebastián Forza, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur involved in ephedrine trafficking, but later on Fernández tried to displace him to run the business himself.

The case broke in July 2008, when police raided the first synthetic drug lab found in the South American country. A dozen Mexicans, led by an Argentine, were arrested in the house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where designer drugs were produced. Later it was discovered that it was just one of the gangs getting ephedrine.

During the trial in which Lanatta was convicted for the murder of Forza, Damián Ferrón and Leopoldo Bina, justice concluded that the mastermind was Esteban Pérez Corradi, a fugitive businessman.

Fernández rejected all accusations even before the program was aired and he added that he never met Lanatta or had anything to do with Forza, and that everything responds to a political operation against him.