MEXICO CITY (CN) - In her morning press conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed some details of the operation that took down a highly organized and lucrative gas theft ring on Sunday that spanned three Central Mexican states.
"It was an investigation of almost six months, very well put together, with deep intelligence work that involved the entire security cabinet," said Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum also confirmed that due to the scale of the gas theft operation - or huachicol, as the gas theft industry is called in Mexico - the Attorney General's Office is investigating collaboration between officials who work for Mexico's state-owned oil company, PEMEX, and criminal organizations. She said her government will not cover for anyone.
"We would not be doing these investigations and these arrests if we did not want to get to the bottom of this matter," said Sheinbaum.
On Sunday, Omar Garcia Harfuch, secretary of security and civilian protection, announced in a press conference that 767 federal and state security forces secured 12 properties that functioned as headquarters for gas theft and storage in the states of Queretaro, State of Mexico and the federal entity of Mexico City.
Security forces arrested 32 people and confiscated around $850,000 in cash, 36 firearms and over 60 vehicles, including tractor-trailers, motorcycles and cars. Authorities also seized exotic animals such as a jaguar cub, lion cub and exotic birds. The assets seized were valued at around $8 million.
"Using technological tools, including fixed and aerial surveillance, the main leaders were identified as well as the illegal fuel extraction points and transportation routes they used," Harfuch said at the Sunday press conference.
Harfuch said that though the group doesn't seem to be affiliated with the larger organized criminal groups that have been linked to huachicol in the area in the past.
Cartels and organized criminal groups make billions off of stolen gasoline each year - by some estimates, $5.5 billion - by illegally drilling into underground PEMEX oil and gas pipelines, bribing employees, stealing from refineries and hijacking.
The criminals sell their illicit fuel tax-free on the black market to gas stations, independent brokers or even directly to automobile drivers on the highway.
Gas theft is predominant in the industrialized Central Mexican states of Puebla, Guanajuato, State of Mexico and Hidalgo.
Huachicol can be an extremely dangerous trade. In January 2019, a gas pipeline in Hidalgo exploded, caused by an illegal tap that killed 137 people.
Thieves also tap liquefied petroleum gas pipelines to be sold in tanks, primarily to homes and restaurants to power stoves and water heaters.
According to PEMEX data, pipelines that contain oil or oil-derived gases are tapped every hour.
In May, the U.S. Department of the Treasury cited fuel theft and crude oil smuggling as a modus operandi of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in an alert.
"Fuel theft and crude oil smuggling are cash cows for CJNG's narco-terrorist enterprise, providing a lucrative revenue stream for the group and enabling it to wreak havoc in Mexico and the United States," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
The alert named fuel theft the most lucrative non-drug revenue source for Mexican cartels and other illicit actors.
Source: Courthouse News Service
