Cuba Deports Man in Graft Scandals

Carlos Ahumada, a Mexican businessman videotaped passing large wads of cash to elected officials, was deported from Cuba and arrived here late Wednesday to face corruption charges.

Ahumada arrived aboard a Cubana Airlines flight that was isolated on a runway and surrounded by federal agents. Four officials escorted him off the plane and handed him over to authorities as Mexico City Dist. Atty. Bernardo Batiz watched from a nearby hangar.

Before Ahumada left Cuba, that country’s Foreign Ministry said: “Cuba in no way wishes to meddle in the internal affairs of Mexico. We have been unduly mixed up in this scandal.”

Ahumada fled to the island in February after Mexican television stations aired tapes showing him handing cash to members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

That tape led to the release of other videos showing officials in compromising positions and touched off a series of scandals that embarrassed and angered the administration of Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a member of Democratic Revolution, who before the scandals had been considered the leading candidate to replace President Vicente Fox in 2006 elections.

Ahumada, an Argentine-born naturalized Mexican citizen, admitted making the videotape.

He said he did it because city officials were trying to extort from him.

The scandals led to the resignation of Democratic Revolution officials and public servants and have provoked a sharp decline in Lopez Obrador’s approval ratings.