Contraband fuel: Smuggling gasoline into Mexico earns cartels millions

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Set us as preferred MEXICO CITY — Mexico has been a major oil producer for more than a century, but its lack of refining capacity creates a quandary: The country must import much of its gasoline and diesel from the United States.That’s a boon for U.S.refineries and related industries on both sides of the border, but U.S.

and Mexican authorities say Mexican cartels have infiltrated the commerce, creating a black-market bonanza in smuggled fuel while leaving behind a trail of murder victims.At its core, the crime known as huachicol fiscal is a vast tax evasion scheme centered on falsified paperwork — and corrupt officials.Last year, Mexican authorities seized millions of gallons of contraband fuel in scores of railroad cars and trucks near Mexico’s border with Texas.The follow-up investigation led to last month’s stunning arrest of one of Mexico’s most celebrated political figures — Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the former governor of Baja California.The conservative Ruffo and his backers call him the victim of a political vendetta by Mexico’s left-wing government.Prosecutors label him a central player in a complex, multibillion-dollar fuel-smuggling racket linked to cartels.“It’s false to say there is anything political here,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters in July.

“This is an investigation with a legal basis and with evidence.” World & Nation The targeted killings were clearly a warning from organized crime, which constitutes a kind of parallel government in many parts of Mexico.Bootleg gasoline and diesel don’t enter Mexico clandestinely via remote stretches of the borderlands.Rather, the fuel — overwhelmingly purchased legally in the United States — arrives at seaports and border crossings via ships, trains and trucks, part of the daily deluge of imported hydrocarbons.

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