Municipal police officers arrested 11 National Guard members on Saturday, apprehending them in the act of filling up a tanker truck with stolen fuel.
Around midnight on Saturday, local authorities in Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, responded to a 911 call and found the suspects safeguarding a Pemex pipeline that was being tapped.
The police found members of the National Guard patrolling the area with Army-issued weapons and three official military vehicles. One guardsman sat at the wheel of a tanker truck which was being filled up via the tap on the pipeline.
Questioned by the police, the guardsman in the tanker truck said the troop was providing security for the fuel truck, but then started the engine and tried to flee.
The operation resulted in the capture of three officers, two of whom were in civilian clothes, and eight enlisted men. An inspection after the incident led police to conclude that the men were stealing fuel.
An unspecified number of troops managed to escape.
The 11 suspects and their weapons were turned over to the Federal Attorney General’s Office and the tanker truck and military vehicles were impounded. Two pick-up trucks were also impounded at the scene.
Media reports suggest that the captured troops were from several different battalions.
The Defense Ministry acknowledged the reports that 11 members of the National Guard were caught in the act of stealing fuel, confirmed to prosecutors the names of the suspects and verified the weapons and vehicles as Army-issue.
Fuel theft, popularly known as huachicoleo in Mexico, has long been a problem for Pemex, but it has surged in the past 15 years. Pemex has reported that fuel theft costs the state oil company approximately US $900,000 per day.
Fuel smuggling and the resulting tax evasion cost the national treasury roughly US $24 million each day last year, according to PetroIntelligence.
Federal anti-corruption officials have accused transnational companies of avoiding IEPS excise tax on shipments of contraband gasoline and diesel by reporting the fuel as vegetable oil or lubricants not subject to the tax. This has resulted in lost revenue of around 1 billion pesos (US $51.7 million) per shipment.
With reports from El Universal, La Jornada and Proceso
