By Steve Fainaru and William Booth
Washington Post
Updated: 12/13/2009 09:54:36 PM CST
MALTRATA, Mexico — Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico’s pipelines over the past two years in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.
Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.
The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderon’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling.
Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderon launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. Authorities said they have traced much of the oil rustling to the Zetas, a criminal organization founded by former military commandos. Although the Zetas initially served as a protection arm of the powerful Gulf cartel, they now call their own shots and dominate criminal
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enterprise in the oil-rich states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.
“The Zetas are a parallel government,” said Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a federal lawmaker who heads a national committee on energy. “They practically own vast stretches of the pipelines, from the highway to the very door of the oil companies.”
The Zetas earn millions of dollars by “taxing” the oil pipelines — organizing the theft themselves or taking a cut from anyone who does the stealing, according to Mexican authorities. The U.S. Treasury Department this summer designated two Zeta commanders as narcotics “kingpins,” which allows authorities to seize assets.
This year, executives of four Texas companies pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiring to receive and sell millions of dollars worth of stolen petroleum condensate. U.S. law enforcement officials said in interviews that they have no evidence showing that the men were connected to drug traffickers.
Pemex reported losing $715 million worth of oil to theft last year. The company said it discovered 396 clandestine taps. This year, Pemex projects it will lose at least $350 million to oil pilfering.
Nearly half of the thefts occur in the rugged hills around Veracruz, a largely rural state situated in a region with 2,136 miles of pipeline running from the Gulf of Mexico to refineries in other parts of the country.
To steal the oil, Mexican authorities said, thieves sometimes use safe houses from which they build extensive tunnel networks leading to the pipelines.
They fabricate powerful drills that enable them to puncture the highly pressurized steel pipes and extract the oil without causing spills or suspicious drops in pressure.
Pemex taxes account for 40 percent of the federal budget. Juan Jose Suarez, Pemex’s chief executive, said at company headquarters in Mexico City that the oil theft is a crime against all Mexican citizens: “This is not taking from Pemex; it’s taking from the owners of Pemex. This is the net worth of everybody.”
