C. Hank Gonzalez; Mexican Politician

Carlos Hank Gonzalez, a flamboyant millionaire and politician who helped shape Mexico’s once-dominant PRI party, has died. He was 73.

Hank Gonzalez died of cancer Saturday at his ranch in the Mexico City suburb of Santiago Tianguistenco, his family announced. Further details were not immediately available.

A former agricultural secretary who also headed Mexico’s Tourism Ministry, Hank Gonzalez was a behind-the-scenes force in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known by its Spanish acronym of PRI. The party ruled Mexico from 1929 until last year, when President Vicente Fox became the first opposition candidate ever to win the presidency.

Hank Gonzalez, who also served as Mexico City’s mayor and the governor of Mexico state, was the model for what political opponents called a PRI “dinosaur,” an old-guard leader who built his career doing favors for supporters in rural areas.

Famous for coining the phrase “A politician who is poor is a poor politician,” Hank Gonzalez used his fame as a lifetime public servant to bolster his private ventures in transportation, construction and finance, amassing a fortune that made his family one of the richest in Mexico.

Born in Santiago Tianguistenco, the son of a German immigrant who taught at a local military school, Hank Gonzalez first won public office in Atacomulco, a municipality in Mexico state. There he became a rising star in a local government that served as a showcase for classic PRI politics and rewarded local support by lavishing the area with public works projects.

Hank Gonzalez later founded the Atacomulco political movement, committed to furthering the PRI’s political machine.

Battling cancer since 1986, Hank Gonzalez had been out of public view in recent years. His son, Carlos Hank Rhon, has made headlines, however.

Hank Rhon ran afoul of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board regarding his ownership of Laredo National Bancshares, an offshore holding company that the Fed alleged he used to surreptitiously sell part ownership in Laredo National Bank to his father and other business associates.

Hank Rhon denied those charges, but in May agreed to pay the U.S. government $40 million and resign as chairman of the bank’s board of directors.

Last year, Hank Gonzalez’s family was cited in a report by the U.S. government’s National Drug Intelligence Center as “a significant criminal threat to the United States” because of its alleged role in drug trafficking and money laundering.

Hank Gonzalez repeatedly denied the allegations, and Janet Reno, then attorney general, later said the intelligence center had no business investigating Hank Gonzalez’s family.