Carlos Hank González

Carlos Hank González was born in Santiago Tianguistenco in the State of Mexico. He graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Toluca as a primary education teacher and from the Normal Superior (Teacher's College) de México as a professor of history and biology. From 1947 to 1951 he was a teacher at the Secundaria Federal de Atlacomulco.[5] To supplement his income, he sold candy on the side. He grew and exchanged his small businesses into larger ones, along the way adding names of prominent politicians to his list of contacts. He founded a business empire of banking and transportation interests. In 1999, Forbes estimated his wealth at about US$1.3 billion.[6]

He married Guadalupe Rhon, with whom he had five children, 3 boys and 2 girls. He is the father of Carlos Hank Rhon, Cuauhtemoc Hank Rhon, and Jorge Hank Rhon[6] and grandfather of Carlos Hank González who now heads the company called Grupo Financiero Interacciones.[7]

In 1997, Carlos Hank González suffered an embolism[5] and died in 2001 of cancer, spending the last few years of his life in the United States for treatment.[10][11]

Carlos Hank Gonzalez was accused of having ties to drug traffickers such as Félix Gallardo, the Arellano brothers, and Mayo Zambada. He and his group were also accused of having control over American banks, investment companies, casinos for laundering money, drug trafficking with cartels, and other illegal activities. According to a report by the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) nicknamed Operation White Tiger, Hank González's involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering posed "a significant criminal threat to the United States."[2][12][13] While U.S. law enforcement officials had spent years investigating Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his sons Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge Hank Rhon, the assessment by several agencies marked the first time that all three had been alleged direct links to the operations of major Mexican drug organizations.[2][14] The report drew on information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, U.S. Customs Service, CIA, Interpol and others, that was later denied.[3] The report alleges that intelligence agencies had intercepted conversations of the Hank family coordinating drug shipments.[2] The document claims that the Hank family had laundered money on a massive scale, assisted drug trafficking organizations in transporting drug shipments, and engaged in large-scale public corruption,[2] while being closely associated with the late Juárez Cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Agents involved in the probe feared that Washington would conclude that Operation White Tiger was too controversial, and potentially too disruptive to Mexican-American relations for it to continue, and suspected it would eventually be blocked; as previous investigations of top Mexican politicians had been.[12] Former Mexican official and politician Eduardo Valle,[15][16] in an interview recovered by the World Policy Institute, described Carlos Hank as the "primary intermediary between the multinational drug trafficking enterprises and the Mexican political system".[13] Eduardo Valle, founder of the Mexican Worker's Party, was a political opponent of PRI.[16]

Following the media revelations about Operation White Tiger, the Hank family, which has denied its alleged links to top Mexican narcotraffickers and the alleged protection the White Tiger report claims they provided, hired former U.S. senator Warren Rudman as their attorney to represent their interests in Washington.[12][17] The lawsuit forced US authorities, particularly Attorney General Janet Reno, to publicly recognize the report was a leaked draft of an executive summary[3] and "beyond the substantive expertise and area of responsibility of the NDIC."[4] The sources of the report also denied its content after the lawsuit was presented.[3]

Hank González appears in a prominent role in Season 3 of the Netflix serial drama Narcos: Mexico. He is played by Manuel Uriza. According to experts in the field,[18] the questionable mention of Hank in the show relies on the fact that he is not alive, therefore, Netflix is able to use his name without the risk of receiving a defamation lawsuit. This was confirmed by lead actor José María Yazpik who stated that "since Hank is already dead, his name can be used, while in other seasons, when faced with possible lawsuit, they opted to change the names".[19]