In a sweeping crackdown that has sent shockwaves through Mexico’s political and security establishment, authorities have arrested 14 individuals—including a high-ranking navy officer and several government officials—after uncovering a sprawling fuel theft operation that stretches from Texas to the heart of Mexico’s energy infrastructure. The operation, which culminated in the seizure of 10 million liters of illicit diesel in March 2025, marks one of the largest busts in the country’s history and exposes the deepening grip of organized crime on Mexico’s lucrative fuel black market.
This latest round of arrests, announced on September 6 and 7, 2025, by Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero and Security Minister Omar García Harfuch, is just the tip of the iceberg. According to El Universal and The Associated Press, authorities have filed requests for more than 200 additional arrest warrants, signaling that the investigation is far from over. The list of those detained reads like a cross-section of Mexico’s power structure: customs employees, businessmen, six members of the military—including Vice Admiral Roberto Farías Laguna, who is related to former Navy Minister Rafael Ojeda—and Francisco Javier Antonio Martínez, a former customs director and later administrator at the port of Tampico.
The entire operation unraveled after the March seizure of the petroleum tanker Challenge Procyon in the Gulf Coast port of Tampico. The tanker, carrying 10 million liters of diesel, had declared its cargo to customs as a petrochemical—thereby skirting Mexico’s hefty import taxes on fuel. “Each unloading of a shipment of fuel for which the IEPS [Special Tax on Production and Services] is not paid costs the government around 1 billion pesos (US $51.7 million),” Anti-Corruption and Good Government Minister Raquel Buenrostro told The Associated Press in May. The scale of the fraud and the sophistication of the network, which involved complicit companies and corrupt customs officials, stunned even seasoned investigators.
Fuel theft—locally known as huachicol—has ballooned into one of Mexico’s fastest-growing and most profitable criminal economies. The US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) declared in May 2025 that fuel theft is the “most significant non-drug illicit revenue” for Mexico’s criminal mafias. The numbers are staggering: Pemex, the state-run oil company, estimates losses of approximately US $3.8 billion over the past five years due to fuel theft. In 2024 alone, thieves siphoned off nearly 987 million liters of fuel, a dramatic increase from 371 million liters in 2019.
But the problem goes far beyond the loss of revenue. According to US intelligence cited by InSight Crime, Mexico’s fuel theft mafias—some designated as “terrorist organizations” by the US government—have expanded their reach to international energy markets. Oil stolen in Mexico has turned up in the United States, India, and even Japan. Conversely, billions of liters of illicit fuel have flowed from the United States into Mexico, where criminal networks use shell companies and customs fraud to evade taxes and sell hydrocarbons on the black market, generating tens of millions of dollars in profits.
The roots of huachicol run deep. The trade began in the 1990s with small, local groups tapping pipelines and selling cheap, stolen fuel to their communities. These early thieves often cultivated a Robin Hood image, and their exploits were immortalized in folk ballads. Some even prayed to El Niño Huachicoleo, the folk saint of oil theft, for protection. But the landscape shifted dramatically in 2007 when large criminal organizations, led by the Zetas—a notorious armed wing of the Gulf Cartel—muscle in. US intelligence shared with the Mexican government that year revealed a sprawling fuel theft operation in Tamaulipas’s oil-rich Burgos Basin.
Several factors fueled the expansion of huachicol. A government crackdown on drug trafficking in 2006 nudged organized crime groups toward alternative revenue streams. At the same time, the Mexican government began winding down fossil fuel subsidies, pushing up pump prices and making stolen fuel even more attractive. By 2010, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas had doubled down on fuel theft, funding increasingly violent turf wars. The number of illegal pipeline taps detected by Pemex skyrocketed from 152 in 2003 to a record 14,910 in 2018, with the problem spreading rapidly from Tamaulipas to central states like Puebla and Guanajuato.
The arrival of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG) in 2015 brought even more violence. The CJNG’s attempt to seize control of pipeline territory in central Mexico sparked fierce resistance from local groups, leading to the formation of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. The ensuing battles transformed previously peaceful states into some of Mexico’s most dangerous. “You have to control where the pipelines are in order to do the thieving … So [criminal groups] fight over physical territory in a way that they don’t fight over territory to traffic synthetic drugs like fentanyl or methamphetamine,” researcher Jane Esberg told InSight Crime.
Today, the state of Hidalgo—home to the massive Tula refinery, which processes about 315,000 barrels of crude oil daily—has become Mexico’s fuel theft capital. In 2024, the state recorded 2,450 illegal pipeline taps, more than any other region. The town of Tlahuelilpan, site of a devastating 2019 pipeline explosion that killed at least 137 people, remains a hotspot. Between 2022 and 2023, Pemex detected an average of 3,226 clandestine taps annually along the pipeline passing through the town, with 111 taps in Tlahuelilpan alone.
The scale and audacity of these operations are made possible by systemic corruption. “Huachicol networks require a level of political, military and police protection,” Mexican security analyst David Saucedo told The Associated Press. The recent crackdown, he noted, was largely prompted by pressure from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who visited Mexico days before the arrests to demand action. Saucedo’s assessment is echoed by many observers who say that only with such high-level collusion could criminal groups operate so openly and profitably.
Despite the dramatic arrests, Mexican officials have sought to downplay the extent of the problem within the government. Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch insisted, “the actions of a handful of isolated people doesn’t mean they’re acting in the name of a respectable institution.” Prosecutor Gertz Manero and García Harfuch repeatedly characterized the sailors’ involvement as “isolated cases” and sidestepped questions about the broader network’s reach.
Still, the facts remain stark. The Challenge Procyon bust in Tampico exposed a criminal enterprise that not only siphons off Mexico’s resources but also corrupts its institutions at the highest levels. The future of the investigation—and whether it will root out the full extent of official complicity—remains to be seen. For now, the shadow of huachicol continues to loom large over Mexico’s energy sector, with both the government and organized crime locked in a high-stakes battle for control of the country’s pipelines and ports.
As the investigation widens and more arrests are expected, all eyes are on Mexico’s ability to confront the intertwined challenges of organized crime, corruption, and the relentless demand for cheap fuel—issues that will shape the nation’s security and economic future for years to come.
