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MEXICO CITY — Federal law enforcement authorities clarified Thursday that 59 million liters of gasoline seized during what was initially celebrated as the largest fuel-theft bust in Mexican history were not actually stolen, but had simply been misplaced in a series of administrative oversight errors spread across ten industrial storage tanks.
The announcement comes nearly two months after joint state and federal forces executed a high-profile raid on a fuel terminal in San José Iturbide, Guanajuato, triumphantly declaring a decisive victory against huachicoleros, or fuel thieves.
“Upon closer examination of the terminal’s filing cabinets, we determined that all 59 million liters were, in fact, accounted for on paper, though regrettably filed under ‘miscellaneous liquid assets’ rather than active inventory,” said a spokesperson for the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), who requested anonymity to speak on the logistical mix-up. “It was less an act of organized crime and more an issue of an intern mislaying a very large set of clipboards.”
According to officials, the initial confusion arose when law enforcement agents arrived at the facility and discovered tens of millions of liters of petroleum sitting in industrial containers without an immediate, visible paper trail attached to the side of the tanks.
The government praised the terminal’s operating company for its swift cooperation in resolving the discrepancy by presenting the missing permits shortly after the raid concluded, effectively reducing the historical law enforcement operation to a routine inventory audit.
“We are pleased to report that the energy security of the nation was never compromised by illicit cartels, but rather momentarily obscured by a localized filing error,” the spokesperson added, noting that the federal agent who authorized the initial raid has since been reassigned to another state.
At press time, federal officials confirmed that while no arrests had been made, the 59 million liters of fuel have been safely returned to their original status of existing quietly in Guanajuato until further notice.
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