Mexico - The Man From Tabasco
July 2003 - 19 min 00 sec
Synopsis He was Mexico’s billionaire fugitive - a local hero turned banker who evaded an international man hunt for six years before being arrested in Australia in 2001. Now, Carlos Cabal is back in Mexico and he’s spoken exclusively to Foreign Correspondent’s Jennifer Byrne.
Life turned sour for Cabal in the mid nineties. The bank he ran collapsed, the first of a series of financial disasters that almost led to Mexico’s bankruptcy. It exposed a nation awash with corruption and cronyism, but Carlos Cabal fled the country just as prosecutors were preparing to pounce.
Mexico’s most wanted man led his family through Europe and Latin America before arriving in Australian under a different name. Ever audacious, he posed as an Italian businessman to start up pasta making enterprise in Melbourne, still living the high life.
After Interpol swooped, Cabal found himself back in Mexico to face charges of fraud and embezzlement. But as the ABC’s Jennifer Byrne found out, he’s not exactly ‘doing it tough’. On bail of US $500 million, Carlos Cabal says he wouldn’t think of skipping the country again and has a team of 23 lawyers to work on his upcoming court cases.
“The charges are totally baseless and false” he insists. But as Carlos Cabal explains, he has plenty of enemies from the ranks of thousands of Mexicans who lost everything in the financial collapse of the nineties.
Tabasco Music 00:00
Byrne: Tabasco is just as hot as its name suggests. A steamy, somewhat shabby state in Mexico’s deep south. 00:16
Tour of Villahermosa by taxi A quick tour of its capital, Villahermosa, reveals the most famous name in town is Cabal. Carlos Cabal.Taxi Driver: This is the street, sometimes we call it Carlos Cabal Street, because he has many businesses here. 00:34
Taxi Driver/Skyscraper. Taxi Driver: You can see it’s a very nice building. It’s the most beautiful building at the city of Villahermosa. It was for Carlos Cabal 00:
Cabal Byrne: Carlos Cabal is the man who - they say - broke the banks of Mexico.Byrne: How do you plead to these charges of fraud and embezzlement?Cabal: They are totally baseless and false charges. 01:03
Bananas production line Music 01:19
Byrne: Tabasco is banana country – and Carlos Cabal was this poor and neglected state’s biggest banana. He organised struggling local producers into a strong network, exporting their fruit to the world. 01:35
Adrian in banana plantation Adrian Prats is head of the local banana producers, and a staunch Cabal supporter. 01:57
Adrian Adrian: We in Tabasco, wish there was not one Carlos Cabal, but ten Carlos Canals so that Tabasco can progress so that we might prosper more quickly 02:07
Mexico City Byrne: And it wasn’t just the banana men who backed the young hotshot. The early 90s were Mexico’s glory days. The economy was being reformed and privatised – entrepreneurs were heroes. 02:22
Photos of Cabal Cabal was praised and promoted by Mexico’s then president, Carlos Salinas. And he enjoyed a close alliance with Salinas’ chosen successor, Luis Colosio. 02:37
Adrian Adrian: The federal government themselves introduced him to us and encouraged us to invest with him -- and to ask that the south-east invest in the bank and Carlos Cabal’s banks. 02:50
Cabal in car Music 03:03
Byrne: This is Carlos Cabal today. He has no banks, no political protectors. He faces jail over a complex raft of tax fraud and banking charges, involving around seven hundred million dollars in bad loans -- loans which it’s alleged he made to himself. Carlos Cabal denies everything, concedes nothing. 03:16
CabalSuper: Carlos Cabal Cabal: No, no, I will fight this to the end, I have to proof my innocence. I owe that to my family, I owe that to my friends, so I have to fight it to the end. 03:43
Cabal at home with family Byrne: For a man on bail of $800 million, Carlos Cabal lives in high style in an elegant Mexico City apartment with his wife, Teresa, and their four children. There he enjoys good food, fine wine, and the support of those who never doubt. Like his eldest daughter, 17-year old Sofia.Sofia: I do believe he’s totally innocent. 04:04
I don’t know exactly why it happened. 04:33
Sofia People say things happen for the best and I do believe that’s true, because right now we’re all happy together. We’re all really happy to be with our relatives, all our cousins, my grandmother and everyone. 04:36
Caba Cabal: I think they love me still and I'm very proud of that, and I'm very happy with my family. 04:47
Cabal and family at home Byrne: Cabal rarely leaves his apartment except when he must, to fight his many court cases. 04:57
Cabal leaving court Out there, in the real world, the Man from Tabasco is neither safe, nor popular.Byrne: When people say you were 05:07
cabal partly responsible for the collapse of the Mexican economy, what’s your response?Cabal: That is not true. They are not well informed. That is part of a campaign of political persecution that I suffer, and they use all the press to say look, this is the guilty one for the collapse of the economy. Which is ridiculous.Byrne: But why does everyone remember you?Cabal: It was very easy for them to just choose one of the newest, youngest, or maybe weakest bankers at that moment, and it was me. 05:19
Stock exchange floor Music
Byrne: Cabal’s bank was among the first to fail, but others followed, collapsing like cards . Mexico teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. The economic disaster exposed a deeply corrupt political regime. 06:02
Traffic passes police point/Finance minister’s home Byrne: The best gauge of how things were done in Mexico – the story which gives a real smell of the times – concerns the private, in fact secret dinner party held here at the home of the former finance minister. The 1994 elections were still 18 months off but the government, the PRI, wanted campaign funds. So they pressed the billionaires. What were they prepared to cough up? US$25 million. Each. 06:26
Cabal Cabal: Well you have to get along well with that party, otherwise it was going to be very difficult for you to do business in Mexico. So you had to try always to get along with the people in power, yes. 06:57
File footage: Assassination Byrne: Cabal always did get along – until this. The assassination of Luis Colosio, the candidate he supported to the tune of $15 million. Byrne: 15 million 07:13
Cabal is a lot of support?Cabal: Yes, yes it is. We were a lot of businessmen behind this amount, so.Byrne: What did you think – hope -- you would get in return?Cabal: Well, what I was expecting is that this candidate would develop our region -- the south east of Mexico -- that’s what I was expecting. 07:32
Inauguration of Zedillo Byrne: Cabal didn’t give $15 million to the new candidate Zedillo -- but, it was he who became the next President. 07:59
Banana plantation In this new climate, federal authorities moved on Carlos Cabal’s companies in Tabasco. The end of the banks, and of the banana bonanza.Byrne: What would you say is the average person’s, is the average 08:15
Fuentes Mexican’s view of Carlos Cabal?... What do they think?Fuentes: Corrupt guy who got away with it, basically. 08:29
Fuentes and Byrne look at newspapers. Byrne: Business journalist Victor Fuentes has covered the Cabal story since the mid-90s, when it became the hottest story in Mexico. And one of the most complex.Fuentes: It is no doubt the biggest white collar story that Mexico has seen in the last 20 or 30 years. 08:42
FuentesSuper: Victor Fuentes“Reforma” newspaper He’s the one who has faced more charges, more accusations against him – we’re talking almost 20 accusations have been filed at court against him at some moment or the other. Also, the amount of money that was involved, he was alleged to loan close to 700 US million dollars to companies related to him or to his family. 09:00
Newspaper photos of Cabal Byrne: He says, of course, that he was the victim of a conspiracy, of a vendetta. Fuentes: I think it’s a combination of a banker doing operations that are questionable and also of a political system that at some point decides, you know what, let’s take this guy, let’s make an example out of him, maybe even as a political vendetta, I couldn’t be sure of that, but I think it’s a combination of both elements. 09:20
Slo mo airport Byrne: At the crucial moment - as disgrace and arrest loomed –- Carlos Cabal fled Mexico. Simply disappeared, turning up over the years – with and without his family – in France, Spain, Italy and Latin America. In late 1996, Raphael Certi Merrit touched down in Australia. 09:47
Cabal Byrne: You entered Australia on a false name. It was as you’ve explained an amalgam of family names, but nonetheless it was not your real born nameCabal: On a different name, yes.Byrne: Frankly, didn’t that make you look like a crook?Cabal: Well I never acted as a crook. I was having a normal life. We were all the same. We were not doing any illegal thing. We were respecting all the laws. Yes, we had the different name, that’s what we had. 10:17
Photos of Cabal Music
Byrne: There are few images of Carlos Cabal’s four years in Australia. His house in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Brighton. A family holiday in Sydney. The mug shot when he was arrested, during a morning jog. 10:54
Sofia Sofia: That day, I remember it so well. I remember I went to school that morning, because he always used to go for a run every morning before school. We went to school, and, and then after school I remember one of the lawyers picking us up. Me and my sisters were really, really worried. We didn’t know what was fully going on and we cried the whole afternoon. That was really bad and then that was it, and then the day after that it all came out in the news and the 48newspapers. 11:18
Advertisement Singing
Byrne: This was Cabal’s Australian swan song – the ad for a pasta company which was to be his next business venture.Fuentes: He’s a con man but I think he’s also a natural born businessman, 11:58
Fuentes and that became very clear in Australia – he’s being prosecuted, the Interpol is looking for him and he has the temerity of actually starting a business there. 12:15
Byrne: As an Italian…Fuentes: As an Italian…selling olive oil and pasta, I find that very interesting about the guy, because it gives you the impression about the guy, he never gives up, he will never give up as far as doing business and trying to create profit will go.
Port Phillip Jail Byrne: Australia now turned very sour for Carlos Cabal. He was locked in the maximum security section of Port Philip Jail alongside murderers and child abusers - and shackled when he went to court. For three years he fought against his extradition – just like another rich runaway. 12:45
Cabal: I don’t think they need to put shackles to the body unless they are violent or crazy people. Byrne: Who were you sharing that section of the jail with?Cabal: Oh they were a lot of – I think never to be released criminals – murderers and all kinds of people. Listen – I been charged, but I have never been proven guilty. I have never been sentenced for any offence or any of those charges. 12:56
Jail Byrne: For three years, he fought against his extradition.Byrne: But these surely are not the actions of an innocent man? 13:27
Cabal Cabal: When you have to protect the life of your family, you have to do anything to do it. It was a different Mexico with a lot of killings, a lot of murders and I been threatened. 13:34
de Pavia de Pavia: So I guess it’s a big lie.Byrne: So there’s no reason he ever had to be afraid for his life?De Pavia: It’s like a system that they use. 13:48
Byrne: Augustin de Pavia is Mexico’s most senior international prosecutor. He’d been chasing Cabal since 1998, and was among those waiting when the fugitive voluntarily returned from Australia. 13:57
De Pavia: He was the favourite entrepreneur of President Salinas and I guess he thought he would never be taken to justice. 14:11
De Pavia and Byrne Byrne: Is he a crook?De Pavia: Yes, he is.Byrne: Should he be behind bars?De Pavia: Yes.Byrne: Is he a thief?De Pavia: Well, he’s a very elegant thief, so he doesn’t have a gun, but he has experts in order to say let’s, well, handle the money of the people this way so we can divert this money for our own purposes. 14:21
Reflection of Mexican flag in glass building Music 14:51
Banks facades Byrne: The massive bail-out of the banks cost Mexico’s taxpayers some 90 billion dollars – and, collectively, they’re still paying the bill today. But some individuals suffered too. Lourdes Verdeen, for instance, who took out a mortgage with one of Carlos Cabal’s banks. 14:59
Lourdes walking Lourdes: I bought my house from Banco Cremi, it cost 36.4 million pesos. 15:26
Lourdes enters gate Byrne: That’s around $18,000. It’s a modest house in a struggling neighbourhood. The water here runs for just two hours a day, between 2 and 4 a.m. But Lourdes is a proud owner and made regular monthly payments. 15:40
Lourdes and Byrne Lourdes: Well… it means everything to us -- it is something to hand on. It is impossible to explain all that it means to our family. 16:00
Skyscrapers Byrne: As the banks fell, the interest rates rose, astronomically. Last year, the new owners of Banco Cremi told Lourdes she must find the money – by now, ten times the purchase price - or lose the house. 16:19
Lourdes and Byrne Byrne: If you could speak to Carlos Cabal, what would you say to him?Lourdes: To give back what he took and help all those who owe money for their houses. 16:35
Cabal with lawyers Byrne: Carlos Cabal, meanwhile, fights his own battles…. He employs 23 lawyers - some to defend him, others to prosecute his case for compensation. His bail is far and away the highest ever demanded in Mexico. And, the prosecutors say, it needs to be.De Pavia: If he’s not going to lose big money and 16:52
De PaviaSuper: Augustin de PaviaAttorney General’s Department he finds out – and he has good lawyers – that he is going to end up in jail he may fly away again and it’s going to be impossible to find him. 17:18
Byrne: So it’s not punitive, it’s to hold him hereDe Pavia: It’s to hold him
Cabal. Byrne: You wouldn’t run away again?Cabal: No. No. 17:32
De Pavia De Pavia: Well, if I was in his situation I would say the same, right? But he’s a liar. 17:36
Cabal Byrne: How important is it to you to be declared an innocent man?Cabal: Very important, the most important thing in my life. Very, very important. For my family, I think I have to get that.Byrne: What about for yourself?Cabal: Yes, for myself too, but I have a responsibility. I have a son that is named like me, so I really think I have to fix that 17:45
Tabasco street shots Music 18:15
Byrne: We’ll probably never know the full truth about the Man from Tabasco. Almost ten years have flowed under the bridge … the politicians, and the money, have long gone. But if Carlos Cabal does escape conviction and imprisonment, he plans to return to the south, to re-ignite the banana business - and to retrieve what he can of his life, and his reputation. 18:24
Credits: Reporter: Jennifer ByrneCamera: Geoff Lye, Ron Ekkel, Vince TucciSound: Kate GrahamEditor: Garth ThomasProducer: Vivien Altman