Oily gangsters

While there has been some coverage in the English-language (and U.S.) press, most of what has been written about the latest PEMEX scandal has focused on the arrest of a PRD elected official who was involved in the on-going theft of Mexican oil for resale to U.S. refineries.  According to an EFE report published in the Caracas-based “Latin American Herald Tribune” (not connected with the International Herald Tribune):

Police arrested the nine members of a gang that stole oil from state-owned oil giant Pemex and resold it in the United States, operating under the protection of “Los Zetas,” the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel, officials said.

Bank accounts holding $98 million and belonging to the gang’s members were also frozen, federal police commissioner Rodrigo Esparza said.

The suspects allegedly stole fuel from Pemex’s fields in the Burgos Basin in Tamaulipas state…

Prosecutors “have accounted for transactions (by the gang) in the financial system of nearly $46 million and 750 million pesos (some $52 million) between 2007 and 2008,” the head of the SIEDO organized crime unit, Marisela Morales, said.

Esparza, for his part, said the suspects stole oil from the storage tanks in Burgos and shipped it into the United States in tanker trucks, using falsified customs documents.

The suspects sold the oil to refineries in the United States and deposited the large payments in scores of accounts in an effort to hide where the money originated and was going.

While the political fallout will be interesting to watch, what’s more interesting is how this is going to impact U.S. – Mexican relations.  Will the co-conspirators (which oil companies were involved, and who had responsiblity for buying stolen oil) be named?  More importanly, will they face charges, and better yet, be extradited to Mexico?

Follow the money.  This has been going on for some time now,  which means the gangsters have been looking for new revenue streams though smuggling oil isn’t all that different from smuggling narcotics… they’re both high-demand Mexican substances for which there are willing buyers in the United States, and the money from one criminal operation isn’t any different from money from another criminal operation.

While the Mexicans have identified assets in Mexico, there are bound to be assets in the United States… and, if the oil companies were refining and selling the oil, there will be, at the very least, some entertaining law suits and sweaty suits to watch.  I kind of doubt any oil executives will go to prison over this, but should the oil companies be forced to fess up to any criminal wrong-doing, it’s not out of the ballpark for the Mexican government, or PEMEX, to file civil suits against the oil companies, which should be highly entertaining.