Mexico fuel trafficking network operated since at least 2023,with 69 shipments and more than $150 million in profits

The route, always the same. An oil tanker leaves the same docks in Houston, Texas, and a few days later arrives at the same piers in Tamaulipas. The warehouses, always with the same cargo: millions and millions of lubricating oil additives. The exporting companies, always the same. The importing companies, the same. So too the naval agency. The smuggling network commanded by high-ranking sailors operated with martial precision. According to information obtained by EL PAÍS, this Mexican customs mafia had been operating since at least June 2023, almost a year before what has been made public so far, and handled 69 contraband shipments that generated profits for the criminals of at least $150 million.

Just over a week ago, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of 14 people, including members of the Navy and businessmen, the largest blow to corruption yet under Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration. The fuel trafficking network, according to the official account, had operated at least since April 2024, allowing the entry of 31 illegal shipments of fuel disguised as lubricating oil additives, mainly through the Tampico customs office. However, information from entry records at Mexican ports and customs documents in the possession of EL PAÍS deepen this taint. The criminal network reportedly began operating at least a year earlier, in June 2023. It managed the illegal entry into port of at least 564 million liters of fuel on 69 oil tankers at four different customs offices.

This crime, known as huachicol fiscal (fual tax evasion), involves smuggling refined fuel into Mexico from another country, which should be subject to the Special Tax on Production and Services (IEPS), hidden under the guise of other goods to which this tax is not applied. If the millions of liters smuggled into Mexico by this network are multiplied by the average annual tax paid, the criminals’ profit was at least three billion pesos, or about $150 million.

This criminal conspiracy united naval officers, public officials, and businessmen to smuggle millions of liters of gasoline into the country. The leaders, brothers Manuel Roberto and Fernando Farías Laguna, hold the ranks of vice admiral and rear admiral, respectively, and are nephews-in-law of José Rafael Ojeda Durán, Secretary of the Navy during Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration (2018-2024). They allegedly used their influence within the institution to oversee the appointment of sailors so that trusted individuals would end up in key customs positions to facilitate their network.

With this investigation, Sheinbaum’s government is shedding light on a shadowy network whose tentacles grew unknown during the administration of her predecessor. While more and more names of colluding military and business leaders are emerging, Sheinbaum warned last Friday that the arrests of those involved have not ended. Meanwhile, the current Secretary of the Navy, Raymundo Pedro Morales, addressed the corruption scheme during the military parade for Independence Day on Tuesday, stating: “It would have been impossible to remain silent.”

Although four customs offices were involved, the operation took place primarily in the neighboring areas of Altamira and Tampico and the best maritime route for bringing goods from Texas. On June 2, 2023, the Singapore-flagged tanker Pis Parangon docked at the Port of Altamira. Its declared cargo, 6.4 million kilos of lubricating oil additives, was handled by the shipping agency Altamaritima, and the exporting company was Ikon Midstream. Its loading dock in Houston, Texas, was Watco’s Greens Port, and its destination was a berth at the Port of Altamira.

This data matches almost all of the following 32 shipments from Houston, 25 of which were imported by B-Match SA de CV, a company that shares the same address as Intanza SA de CV, which managed the import of goods on the Challenge Procyon. This was the first major case of huachicol fiscal reoprted in the media, when the oil tanker arrived from Texas at the port of Tampico in mid-March. Although the declared cargo was lubricating oil additives, the vessel was inspected for a series of fiscal inconsistencies, revealing that its holds were actually carrying fuel. As a result of this discovery, authorities conducted a search of a property near the city of Altamira, where they seized 10 million liters of diesel, 192 containers, and 32 vehicles. Authorities said this discovery was key to beginning the dismantling of the Farías Laguna network.

According to media reports during the investigation, the witness on whom the Attorney General’s Office bases the accusation, nicknamed Santo, received an envelope containing 50,000 pesos (around $2,730) as soon as he took up his post at the Tampico customs office. It was given to him by the now-detained Fernando Ernesto Magaña Gutiérrez, deputy administrator of the Altamira customs office and a bribe-paying operator at his fiscal precinct.

It was at the Tampico customs office that ships loaded with lubricating oil additives began arriving as of April 2024. In total, until authorities seized the Challenge Procyon, a total of 33 shipments arrived, exported mainly by Ikon Midstream and imported entirely by Intanza SA de CV and Azteca Cone SA de CV — which share partners — and all managed, again, by Altamaritima.

There are also two other vessels, the Seaways Citron and the Torn Agnes, which arrived in October 2023 and March 2025 at the port of Guaymas, Sonora. They share an importer, exporter, and agency, although in this case their previous port was Vancouver, Canada. Their arrivals were signed off by Luis Alfredo García Arellano Villegas, ship captain and head of the Guaymas Customs Office in Sonora, and Juan Carlos Sario Pichal, also a captain and deputy director of customs operations at the same facility. Also in March 2025, another tanker with the same information arrived in Ensenada, Baja California, just days before authorities seized eight million liters of illegal fuel from this network.

19 smuggling operations in three months

An analysis of how this network operated reveals that, little by little, the criminals grew more confident as the months passed and they saw that impunity was the norm. At first, each ship made a single trip with a shipment of alleged lubricating oil additives and then departed for other ports, but later some vessels began repeating routes and carrying out several smuggling operations in a row.

This was the case of the Alpine Liberty and the Seaways Jeju, which at the end of 2023 carried out three and five smuggling operations respectively, totaling 51 million kilos of lubricant additives; or the Nord Supreme and Nord Harmony, which at the beginning of 2024 smuggled 45 million kilos into Mexico over seven consecutive trips. But the award for the most ambitious operation goes to the MTM Hamburg and MTM Dublin, which between October and December 2024 carried out five and four trips respectively and managed to smuggle 128 million kilos of lubricant additives, a cargo equivalent in weight to approximately 96 million liters of fuel.

This year provides a testament to how the smuggling network has intensified its operations. In 2023 and 2024, the network operated 22 and 28 shipments, but in just three months of this year, they sent a total of 19 ships loaded with stolen fuel, more cargo than in any of the previous years.

While deepening the investigation and dealing the biggest blow to corruption yet under the Sheinbaum administration, authorities have attempted to preserve Admiral Ojeda Durán’s image, repeatedly emphasizing that he went to the Attorney General’s Office in 2024 to request an investigation into corruption in the customs agency. Several sources familiar with the operation within the Navy describe the Farías Laguna brothers as practically adopted children of Ojeda Durán, and as proof point to their unstoppable rise through the military ranks since their uncle’s appointment to lead the institution.

According to internal documents from the Ministry of Defense leaked by the Guacamaya hacking group, the government had information that smuggling operations using lubricating oils as a disguise date back more than five years. “It should be noted that since January 2020, there has been an observed increase in lubricant imports, without any basis in economic activity; in the peak market demand for the product itself; or in the observed movement of fuel sales,” reads a report prepared by the Tax Administration Service. “These products are not subject to the payment of IEPS (Tax Excise Duty), so they are used as a means of evasion; and they are introduced into the country mainly through land customs.”

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