National Guard troops caught running a fuel heist in Guanajuato state

Municipal constabulary officers arrested 11 National Guard members connected Saturday, apprehending them successful the enactment of filling up a tanker motortruck with stolen fuel.

Around midnight connected Saturday, section authorities successful Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, responded to a 911 telephone and recovered the suspects safeguarding a Pemex pipeline that was being tapped. 

National Guard troops presumably walk much clip enforcing the instrumentality than breaking it. Shown present are members during an cognition adjacent Ciudad Juárez to find tunnels nether the Mexico-U.S. border. (Carlos Sánchez Colunga/Cuartoscuro.com)

The constabulary recovered members of the National Guard patrolling the country with Army-issued weapons and 3 authoritative subject vehicles. One guardsman sat astatine the instrumentality of a tanker motortruck which was being filled up via the pat connected the pipeline.

Questioned by the police, the guardsman successful the tanker motortruck said the unit was providing information for the substance truck, but past started the motor and tried to flee. 

The cognition resulted successful the seizure of 3 officers, 2 of whom were successful civilian clothes, and 8 enlisted men. An inspection aft the incidental led constabulary to reason that the men were stealing fuel. 

An unspecified fig of troops managed to escape. 

The 11 suspects and their weapons were turned implicit to the Federal Attorney General’s Office and the tanker motortruck and subject vehicles were impounded. Two pick-up trucks were besides impounded astatine the scene.

Media reports suggest that the captured troops were from respective antithetic battalions.

The Defense Ministry acknowledged the reports that 11 members of the National Guard were caught successful the enactment of stealing fuel, confirmed to prosecutors the names of the suspects and verified the weapons and vehicles arsenic Army-issue.

Fuel theft, popularly known arsenic huachicoleo successful Mexico, has agelong been a occupation for Pemex, but it has surged successful the past 15 years. Pemex has reported that substance theft costs the authorities lipid institution astir US $900,000 per day.

Fuel smuggling and the resulting taxation evasion outgo the nationalist treasury astir US $24 million each time past year, according to PetroIntelligence.

Federal anti-corruption officials person accused transnational companies of avoiding IEPS excise tax connected shipments of contraband gasoline and diesel by reporting the substance arsenic rootlike lipid oregon lubricants not taxable to the tax. This has resulted successful mislaid gross of astir 1 cardinal pesos (US $51.7 million) per shipment. 

With reports from El Universal, La Jornada and Proceso