Mexico auctions seized jewelry to fund roads

MEXICO CITY — A white gold bracelet adorned with crocodiles and encrusted with 1,331 diamonds glittered from a display case, not far from a yellow gold pendant in the shape of a bullet covered in 450 tiny black diamonds. Those were just two of 2,000 pieces of jewelry seized from criminals and tax cheats that the Mexican government put to auction Sunday.

The sale offered a glimpse into the eccentric tastes of Mexico's criminal underworld, while reinforcing a perception among the new government's supporters that it is more transparent and humble.

It was the third such auction of luxury goods organized by the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has sought to set a tone of austerity since taking office Dec. 1. The auctions have been held outside Los Pinos, a mansion in the capital's Chapultepec Park that served as the official presidential residence until Lopez Obrador turned the property into a cultural center open to the public.

Ricardo Rodriguez Vargas, head of the Finance Ministry's Institute to Return the Stolen to the People, said the goal Sunday was to raise $1.1 million for building roads in western Mexico. Some of the items have been in government storage for as long as five years, gathering dust.

The institute opted to hold off, for now, on the sale of gem-crusted gun handles and pendants of religious figures considered to be the patron saints of drug dealers.

Thousands of Mexicans visited Los Pinos over the past week to gawk at what many assumed to be narco treasures.

“They had some very strange things made,” said Felipe Palma, who passed through with his family Sunday.