Mexico dismantles fuel smuggling ring operating into US, arrests former governor implicated in case

Mexico announced Thursday the dismantling of a vast fuel smuggling ring following an investigation that led to the arrest of a former state governor identified as one of its leaders, the Attorney General's Office reported.

This crime, known as "huachicol fiscal," is one of the most lucrative criminal activities alongside drug trafficking and has implicated high-ranking public officials and Navy officers.

It is "the largest fuel smuggling network detected to date," which used railroad tank cars to bring petroleum products from the United States, said Attorney General Ernestina Godoy in a video.

The criminal organization operated through a port services company founded by Ernesto Ruffo, former governor of the border state of Baja California (1989–1995), who was arrested hours before the announcement.

Ruffo, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), was Mexico's first democratically elected opposition governor, a development that marked the beginning of the downfall of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had ruled the country without interruption since the 1930s.

The companies in the network formally imported petroleum products from refineries in Texas, but upon entering Mexico, they declared quantities lower than the actual amounts or listed products different from those being transported.

The fuel was distributed mainly in the northern states of Coahuila, Durango and Zacatecas without undergoing customs inspections, and was then transported by truck to other regions of the country.

The network's financial transactions show transfers totaling more than 3 billion pesos and foreign exchange transactions amounting to $1.386 billion, Godoy noted.