Gangs of thieves who steal fuel from Mexico’s state-owned pipelines work with such expertise and efficiency that they can make profits of up to 250,000 pesos (US $13,400) a week, according to a public security consultant. At a workshop designed to educate people about the strategies criminals use to commit the crime, Francisco Granados told […]
Guarding petroleum pipelines against theft is going high-tech in Querétaro with the deployment of a fleet of drones designed and built by students at the state’s University of Technology. The first three pipeline surveillance drones are now aiding security and Civil Protection task forces in the Corregidora municipality, located on the Guanajuato border near Apaseo […]
The market for gasoline and other fuels is now open to competition, but some gas stations in the state of Guanajuato operate within a closed market of their own by selling stolen fuel. Reports that at least 50 stations were selling fuel supplied by huachicoleros, or fuel thieves, surfaced in October. At the time, state Interior Secretary […]
MEXICO CITY (Bloomberg) –With its money-losing refineries producing the least fuel in 27 years and only a handful of private partnerships announced since Mexico’s energy reforms, sealing a $2.6 billion venture with Mitsui & Co. will come as a relief to Petroleos Mexicanos. Pemex is a few months away from closing an agreement for the […]
MEXICO CITY — Fuel thieves in Mexico drilled 10,363 illegal taps into state-owned pipelines in 2017, or an average of about 28 every day. The government-owned oil company Pemex reported Wednesday that illegal taps rose about 50 percent last year, from 6,873 in 2016. Those are just the taps that have been found. Many others […]
In the downstream, however, aging refineries built before 1980 have been bleeding cash for years and made Mexico import increasing volumes of refined products to meet growing demand. Operational and investment troubles aside, refineries in Mexico are bleeding as drug cartels have been racketeering refinery workers to help them tap storage facilities, trucks, and pipelines […]
SALAMANCA – The first call, from someone claiming to belong to the Michoacan Family drug cartel, came in February 2015. “They said they knew who I was and where I lived,” said Alberto Arredondo, who got the call at work as a pump technician at an oil refinery in the central Mexican city of Salamanca. […]
by Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby4 Dec 2017Reynosa, MX0 As part of an ongoing intelligence-based operation, Tamaulipas state authorities seized two tractor trailers with large tankers full of potentially stolen fuel as they were coming across the international bridge of Los Indios near Matamoros, Tamaulipas, immediately south of Harlingen. Information provided to Breitbart Texas by […]
All sorts of weird and wonderful records are broken on a regular basis in Mexico — with Guinness records to prove it — but while many are a source of pride, others are not so brag-worthy. A new record of the latter variety has been set by petroleum pipeline thieves known as huachicoleros, who between […]
MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexican authorities say 12 people have died in the central state of Puebla in a string of shootings being investigated as possible score-settling by rival gangs of fuel thieves. The state prosecutor’s office reports Tuesday that three men and a woman were slain at a hospital in the state capital. Another man […]