The head of the Ministry of Citizen Security and Protection (SSPC), Omar García Harfuch, confirmed the arrest of fourteen people involved in fuel smuggling, also known as Huachicoleo, after the confiscation last March of ten million liters in the state of Tamaulipas.
The official explained, in a press conference, that the arrest of these people – which had already advanced on Saturday without specifying a figure or names – was the result of the “recent operational deployments in the states of Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Mexico City, where the apprehension orders against three entrepreneurs, five active sailors, one in retirement and five former customs officers” were executed.
García Harfuch cited the names of Manuel Roberto “N”, Climaco “N”, Humberto Enrique “N”, Sergio “N”, Carlos de Jesús “N”, Fernando Ernesto “N”, Francisco Javier “N”, Endira Xóchitl “N”, Pearl Elizabeth “N”, Natalia “N”, Ismael “N”, Anuar “N”, Héctor Manuel “N”
On the eve, different media pointed out that among the detainees was Vice Admiral Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna, a political nephew of the former Secretary of the Navy between 2018 and 2024, Rafael Ojeda Durán, close to former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024).
In clear reference to Farías Laguna, García Harfuch said that “the isolated act of a few” agents of the Secretariat of the Marina (Semar) “does not represent the act of the institution.”
“We recognize the coordinated and permanent work, for many years, of the SEMAR, which has played a fundamental role in the security of our nation. I also take advantage of the important work carried out by Admiral Rafael Ojeda Durán during his management, who did an extraordinary work to strengthen that institution,” the secretary added.
In his turn, the head of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), Alejandro Gertz Manero, said that almost two years ago “he went to the Prosecutor’s Office, the then Secretary of the Navy (Ojeda Durán).”
“He let us know about the problems he had in several areas of that institution, and from that moment on, we ask him to help us with the complaints and the evidence of what this type of irregularities were and how we were going to solve them,” added the attorney general.
Gertz Manero said that Ojeda Durán “asked that we investigate all the people who within the Mexican Navy could be linked to those crimes. He did not point to us whether or not they were relatives, but did not make any distinction or generate any type of protection in favor of anyone; there are fugitive people and there will be many more arrest warrants,” he added.
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Meanwhile, in order to dismantle the corruption network that facilitated the illegal introduction of hydrocarbons to the country, there was the collaboration of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which contributed “to identify deposits and removal of cash, acquisition of real estate and luxury vehicles, as well as the hiring of life policies and insurance premiums for superior amounts incongruous with a profile of the people investigated. ”
In addition, the secretary said that “twenty objectives were included in the list of blocked people, natural and moral persons directly related to the criminal network. It is important to point out that it is an investigation in process and the inquiries continue to stop all those involved in this crime,” he said.
Last March, Mexican authorities seized ten million liters of hydrocarbons in Tamaulipas, and then, at the end of July, 1.8 million liters of illegal hydrocarbon and a property also in the same state were seized.
These operations are part of the efforts of the Security Cabinet of the Government of Mexico to combat illegal theft and storage of fuel, popularly called ‘Huachicol’, a crime that has generated millionaire losses calculated in almost four billion dollars between 2019 and 2024.
For her part, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government will take investigations against huachicoleo “as far as the top”, regardless of whether public officials or businessmen are involved in these criminal networks.
With EFE information
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