Former Tijuana mayor arrested over guns

TIJUANA, Mexico — Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, one of Mexico’s most flamboyant businessmen and politicians, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal weapons possession, federal law enforcement officials said Saturday.

Mexican troops raided Hank Rhon’s Tijuana house and took him to a branch office of the federal Attorney General’s Office, according to one of the officials. He said Hank Rhon is suspected of having 88 unlicensed weapons. Another official confirmed the report and said the raid occurred early Saturday.

Mexican law limits ownership of large firearms to the military and requires licensing of most other guns.

Hank Rhon’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Hank Rhon was mayor of Tijuana from 2004 to 2007, but lost in a run for Baja California state governor that year. He is a self-proclaimed billionaire who owns a dog track, a nationwide chain of gambling parlors and the Tijuana soccer team that last month won advancement into Mexico’s top soccer league.

His private zoo at one point had 20,000 animals, five times more than the famous San Diego Zoo across the border.

He is the son of a legendary figure in the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. He served in Mexico’s Cabinet, was governor of Mexico State and later mayor of Mexico City. Hank Gonzalez died in 2001.

A 1999 report by the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center singled Hank Rhon out as an associate of drug smugglers, but then-Attorney General Janet Reno called the report incomplete and said its conclusions were “never adopted as official view.”

In 1988, two of Hank Rhon’s employees were convicted of killing a Tijuana journalist who reported on corruption for the crusading weekly Zeta.

And in 1995, he was detained at Mexico City’s airport when customs agents found he failed to declare such items as ocelot furs, ivory carvings, sculptures covered in precious stones and pearl-encrusted vests, the Attorney General’s office said in a statement.

Hank Rhon, the father of 19 children with several different women, said several years ago he was too rich to be corrupt:

“I don’t put anything in my pockets. I take it out,” he said. “I have a really big business ... and with that money I support myself, my wife, my kids and grandkids.”