Mexico’s attorney general has vowed to issue more arrest warrants—potentially targeting government officials—in connection with sprawling fuel theft operations that siphon billions of dollars from the country, the Associated Press reported. 

The announcement comes after the arrest of 14 people, including a senior Mexican navy officer related to a former head of Mexico’s Navy. The officer was detained alongside business leaders and customs officials following the seizure of 10 million liters of smuggled diesel, one of the largest ever recorded in Mexico. Authorities say the fuel was brought into the country via a 46,000-ton tanker, with the aim of dodging Mexican fuel taxes.

Speaking Sunday, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero and Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch portrayed the arrests as a sign of a firm crackdown on the black-market fuel trade, known locally as huachicol. But critics argue the arrests only scratch the surface of a deeply embedded and corrupt fuel theft network that has grown into one of the country’s most lucrative criminal industries.

“Huachicol networks require a level of political, military and police protection,” security analyst David Saucedo told the AP. 

The crackdown follows revelations that Mexican cartels have expanded their fuel theft operations into international smuggling rings, buying cheap fuel in U.S. border states like Texas and illegally importing it into Mexico through fraudulent customs declarations and shell companies, InSight Crime reported. 

According to U.S. intelligence cited by InSight Crime, fuel stolen from Pemex pipelines or smuggled into the country has even reached overseas markets, including India and Japan.

A May 2025 report from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) called fuel theft “the most significant non-drug illicit revenue stream” for Mexico’s organized crime groups. FinCEN identified several U.S.-based energy companies allegedly complicit in buying or facilitating the movement of stolen hydrocarbons. 

Read more at the Associated Press

Read more at InSight Crime