BERN, Switzerland – Swiss authorities will hand over US$74 million to the Mexican government from bank accounts linked to the brother of Mexico's former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the Justice Ministry said Wednesday.

The ministry statement said the money is “clearly of criminal origin.”

More than US$130 million in bank accounts linked to Raul Salinas had been frozen in accounts in Switzerland and London pending this final decision. The accounts were frozen in November 1995, when Swiss investigators first suspected that the money came from drug traffickers.

Mexican authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into the activities of Raul Salinas and others in connection with money laundering and the embezzlement of public funds, the ministry statement said.

Swiss authorities said they have already released US$45 million of the total amount frozen in the Salinas case. The money was released to those entitled to it because it had been determined the money was of legal origin.

Federal Examining Magistrate Paul Perraudin said in releasing the funds that he was closing the Swiss proceedings in the case.

The Swiss authorities froze funds initially in the case when they started criminal proceedings for alleged money laundering nearly 13 years ago. About US$110 million were frozen then as part of the Swiss proceedings and on the basis of an application from Mexico for judicial assistance. Interest has been added.

The decision to release the funds came in response to a Dec. 19, 2007, Mexican request, the statement said.

“The Mexican authorities demonstrated, with the support of bank documents and other papers, how public funds amounting at the time to around US$66 million had been misappropriated and moved to domestic banks,” it said, adding that Swiss authorities had already reconstructed the trail of the funds outside Mexico.

“On the basis of the Swiss and Mexican proceedings, the clearly criminal origin of these assets was thus demonstrated, thereby fulfilling the requirements for their early handover,” the statement said.

It said “the parties concerned” have not opposed the handover to Mexico.

“Since the investigations did not reveal any indications that the remaining assets were of criminal origin, they have been returned to the claimants, whose claim had already been accepted by the civil courts in Switzerland,” the statement said.

They did not identify the claimants, but Swiss officials confirmed reports that the money came from Mexican billionaire Carlos Peralta Quintero.

Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said the legal money that is being returned to claimants had been made available to Raul Salines to set up an investment company.

Examining Magistrate Perraudin said none of the money was going back to the Salinas family.

The statement said the government was retaining 3.3 million Swiss francs (US$3.2 million) from the frozen sums to cover the costs of the Swiss investigation since 1995.

In 2002 Switzerland gave Mexico its extensive files from its money-laundering investigation. The Mexican attorney general's office said it would analyze the documents for its investigation into how Raul Salinas amassed millions of dollars while his brother was president.

Raul Salinas, now 66, was released from prison in 2005 after the overturning of his murder conviction for killing his former brother in law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

He said at the time that his actions in keeping more than US$100 million under false names in Swiss bank accounts were “very unfortunate” and “unforgivable.”

But he repeated his longstanding assertion that the money represented legitimate funds given him by business associates as part of an investment fund.

Carlos Salinas, Mexico's president from 1988 to 1994, has not been charged with wrongdoing in the financial case. The former president denied any knowledge of the money.

Switzerland, embarrassed in past years that its banking secrecy rules fostered a reputation as a safe haven for the funds of dictators and other corrupt foreigners, has stepped up its fight against money laundering.

Reforms over the last two decades have made it harder to hide money in Switzerland, and the country has become a world leader in returning cash.