The admission by a CEO of a Canadian mining company to having a “good relationship” with drug cartels in Mexico has received widespread coverage in the Mexican press.

 “The cartels are active down there…Generally, we’ve had a good relationship with them,” Rob McEwen, CEO of McEwen Mining which was , said during an interview on Business News Network discussing the theft of $8.5 million worth of gold concentrate from the company’s mine in Sinaloa, Mexico. “If we want to go somewhere, we ask them. And they say ‘No, come back in a couple of weeks when we have finished what we are doing.”

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2015/4/9/Watch-Mark-McEwen-on-the-aftermath-of-a-Mexican-gold-heist.aspx

“Cartels decide when we get to do explorations – CEO of robbed mining company” read the headline on Mexico City’s El Universal.

La Gazetta DF, also published in the the Mexican capital, ran the headline “Robbed Canadian mining businessmen reveals dealings with drug traffickers.”

“McEwen Mining admits that cartels control mineral explorations,” the Mexican business newspaper El Financiero’s headline read.

CNN Expansión published the story with the headline “Canadian mining company asked permission from cartels to do explorations”

Rob McEwen, who was appointed to the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour, is the founder of Goldcorp Inc., the world’s largest gold producer measured by market capitalization, which currently stands at $20 billion.