Mexico's drug cartels siphon liquid gold

[GliderGuider]

Mexico's drug cartels siphon liquid gold

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.

Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderón launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. The drug war has claimed more than 16,000 lives and has led the cartels, which rely on drug trafficking for most of their revenue, to branch out into other illegal activities.

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 enterprise in the oil-rich states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

[AngryAmish]

1. I prefer to call it "Texas Tea"

[HillbillyBob]

2. This is another reason to be energy independent

If everyone put into an energy saving goal.

We plan to be fossil fuel free at least as far as the house goes anyway in ten years, it may take longer.
I am already retired/disabled and if we did not have an electric bill, when parter retired that would be a bit less $ that we would have to come up with.

Any way I know what we do is not in a vacuum everything is connected.
If there were no reason for profit folks would not bother to traffic in stolen fuel.