The National Customs Agency of Mexico (ANAM) reported that it will install 14 mobile laboratories to review and certify hydrocarbons imported through border ports and maritime terminals, which will help combat fuel smuggling through that route.
“There are 14 laboratories, 7 will operate at border customs and 7 will operate at maritime customs,” he indicated.
The laboratories that will be installed will be exclusively to determine what type of hydrocarbons are imported through port and border customs, declared Fernando Angli Rodríguez, general director of Customs operations at ANAM.
The ANAM did not have the equipment and instruments in different customs offices in the country for the timely review of hydrocarbons entering the Mexican market, but rather it was sent to Mexico City for certification and validation, the official said within the framework of the XXIX Annual Congress of Shipping Agents, organized by Amanac.
“At the moment the laboratories are being built for the validation of hydrocarbons, facilities and connectivity such as water, steam, electricity and air conditioning still need to be built for the equipment to operate. These laboratories will determine the type of product being imported from the United States to Mexico in a quick and efficient manner,” he said.
—With the installation of the laboratories, aren’t they going to get targets and contraband?, the ANAM official was questioned.
—We hope so. That is the intention.
—Where were hydrocarbon analyzes done before?
—They are done at the central level. They are sent to the central laboratory, who determines what type of product it is and reports it. Nothing more than that takes a while, you have to take the sample at the port, you have to package it, you have to send it to the central laboratory and in the central laboratory they analyze them and send the results.
In the fiscal huachicol plot, which is essentially smuggling, the Central Laboratory of the National Customs Agency of Mexico, in charge of Navy commanders, validated as oil what was actually gasoline.
The ships that entered millions of liters of huachicol through the Customs of Altamira and Tampico, with the alleged complicity of Navy commanders, unloaded the fuel thanks to the approval of the ANAM central offices, located in the country’s capital, where the laboratories are located.
According to the FGR investigation against the brothers Roberto and Fernando Farías Laguna, Navy commanders identified as the heads of the fiscal huachicol, in the ANAM laboratories it was ruled that the cargo of 30 ships was diesel oil when in reality they were carrying fuel.
The investigations of fiscal huachicol are not by Customs, but by the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, who “determine who (the culprits) are” and right now no official is related to that crime, clarified Fernando Angli Rodríguez.
Today “the investigations are underway, I don’t know what the investigations are about, so I can’t venture to tell you anything,” said the Customs official.
The ANAM continues with the inspections and with all the protocols so that nothing fails, as well as “everything is inspected, everything is supervised, everything is guaranteed, there is even a supervisor” to avoid any smuggling or crime, he concluded.
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