Mexico’s top security official, Omar Garcia Harfuch, has confirmed that a widely publicized cartel fuel seizure touted last week as a major win was not what the government initially claimed.
Harfuch acknowledged that the raid actually took place two weeks before it was announced to the media. He also confirmed that the operation was carried out by a regional delegation and state authorities, not by any of the specialized crime units within the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), as originally suggested. Perhaps most notably, Harfuch admitted authorities had never confirmed that the seized fuel was actually huachicol, the illegally trafficked fuel the case was built around.
In the wake of the scandal, Juan Francisco Vera, the regional delegate for the Attorney General’s Office, was removed from his post.
The admission validates an earlier investigation by Breitbart Texas, which found that Mexican authorities had raided a legitimate oil storage facility that held valid permits and had a history of government contracts, not a clandestine cartel operation as claimed. Mexican news outlets have since suggested the raid may have been an attempt by corrupt officials to extort the oil company rather than a genuine anti-cartel operation.
Breitbart Texas’s reporting had previously raised the possibility that Mexico’s government was manufacturing raids and seizures to relieve pressure from the United States, which has been pushing Mexico to crack down harder on drug cartels.
A Pattern of Selective Enforcement
While Mexican authorities have pursued certain known cartel figures, the government has continued to shield members of the political establishment, according to the report, allowing cartel operations to expand and adapt. Among the fastest-growing criminal enterprises since the Morena Party took power is the illegal fuel trade known as huachicol.
Separately, an ongoing investigation into illegal fuel trafficking has alleged that top officials within Mexico’s Navy were complicit in allowing large vessels carrying illegal fuel to enter the country. Mexican authorities have so far pinned that case on two naval vice-admirals, while appearing to shield it from reaching former Secretary of the Navy Rafael Ojeda, who is the uncle of the two officers implicated.
Mexican news outlets and politicians have suggested that, if the investigation is allowed to proceed unimpeded, it could eventually implicate Ojeda along with the sons of former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and other senior figures within the ruling Morena party.
The fuel seizure controversy comes as Mexico’s government has also been working to block the arrest and extradition of Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya, who faces a federal indictment in the United States on charges of drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons violations tied to alleged work for the Sinaloa Cartel.
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