State police in Hidalgo arrested six men this week as they were digging a tunnel in an attempt to reach underground Pemex pipelines to steal fuel, authorities said.
The men were detained in the Loma Bonita neighborhood of state capital Pachuca on Monday.
La rápida atención a un reporte ciudadano permitió a la Policía Estatal frenar el robo de hidrocarburo directamente de ductos de Pemex en #Pachuca.
En la acción fue frustrada la excavación de un pozo, además del aseguramiento en flagrancia de seis personas y una camioneta.
Tu… pic.twitter.com/91GZ7z64Ep
— Seguridad Pública de Hidalgo (@SSP_Hidalgo) May 12, 2026
The Hidalgo Security Ministry said that a quick response to a citizen’s report allowed state police to “stop the theft of fuel directly from Pemex pipelines in Pachuca.”
The citizen who reported the alleged crime and other people in the area reportedly heard sounds emanating from underground, alerting them to the construction of a tunnel.
In addition to arresting six men, police also seized a pickup truck in Loma Bonita, located about eight kilometers northwest of downtown Pachuca. Police reportedly found tools for digging and the perforation of pipelines in the vehicle.
The tunnel the men were digging was located on a private commercial property. The tunnel was reportedly located two meters underground and was eight meters long. It was close to reaching underground pipelines, according to reports.
In a separate operation in the municipality of Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, on Monday, state police seized eight vehicles transporting 4,710 liters of stolen fuel, the state government said. Two men were arrested and an illegal pipeline tap was discovered in the community of El Mercillero.
A second fuel theft tunnel was located in Pachuca
The subterranean passageway in Loma Bonita wasn’t the only fuel theft tunnel discovered in Pachuca this week.
The Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) announced on Wednesday that its personnel, Pemex workers, state police and Civil Protection employees had located a nine-meter-long tunnel running next to a Pemex pipeline in the Hidalgo capital.
The tunnel was found on a property located on the Santa Julia Ejido (communal land) in Pachuca, the FGR said in a statement. The FGR had obtained a warrant to search the property. Authorities found a range of tools in the tunnel that could have facilitated the theft of fuel from the underground pipeline. No arrests were reported.
According to municipal data, a total of 79 illegal taps on fuel pipelines were detected last year in Pachuca, a city located about 90 kilometers northeast of central Mexico City. Only 40 municipalities across Mexico recorded a higher number of pipeline perforations in 2025.
Fuel theft has long been a problem in Mexico, and tunnels to facilitate the crime have been discovered previously, including in México state in 2024 and in Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, just a few days ago.
Thieves commonly perforate Pemex pipelines to steal fuel such as gasoline and diesel, a practice that can be extremely dangerous. Numerous perforated pipelines have exploded in Mexico. A pipeline explosion in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, in 2019 claimed more than 130 lives.
In 2025, Pemex recorded losses of almost 23.5 billion pesos (US $1.36 billion) due to fuel theft, a 14.4% increase compared to the previous year.
With reports from La Silla Rota and Milenio
