Mexico anti-fuel theft plan to stem $2.6 bln in losses

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Mexico's fight against rampant fuel theft is expected to save the government nearly 50 billion pesos (2.6 billion U.S. dollars) in losses this year, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday.

"We were able to considerably reduce the theft of fuel. If we continue on this path, we could save close to 50 billion pesos, money that belongs to the people and will be returned to the people through benefits of all types," the president said at a press conference.

Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, has made efforts to tackle the pervasive crime, which reached critical proportions in recent years as organized crime groups began to tap into the state-owned gasoline distribution network to siphon off fuel.

Fuel theft cost Mexico some three billion U.S. dollars last year. More importantly, it leads to a huge human cost. The most recent case, which caught international attention, was when a pipeline blasted in central Mexico on January 19 and caused 98 deaths by January 22.

Before the blast, hundreds of people crowded in to collect gasoline gushing from a pipeline that had been ruptured by suspected fuel thieves.

Residents look at pictures of people missing after an explosion of a fuel pipeline in Mexico, January 21, 2019. /VCG Photo

Mexican security forces, including members of the army, navy and Federal Police, have been deployed to distribution centers and other parts in the past two months to stop the perforation of pipelines operated by state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

"The theft of fuel has not been completely eradicated. Clandestine tapping continues, and we continue with the operation," Lopez Obrador said.

Because some of the regions the pipelines cross are poor, making fuel theft a tempting illicit sideline for the locals, the president announced social programs for 94 towns.

Pemex director, Octavio Romero, said fuel theft averaged 56,000 barrels a day last year.

Minister of Security and Citizen Protection Alfonso Durazo said some 175 people have been charged with fuel theft and another 104 individuals are in preventive custody, and authorities have seized more than 7.8 million liters of stolen fuel and slightly more than one million liters of gas.

In addition, officials have frozen 925 million pesos (48 million U.S. dollars) in accounts belonging to 226 suspects, and seized more than 738,000 U.S. dollars, said Santiago Nieto, head of the Finance Ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit.

The Energy Regulation Commission has revoked the operating licenses of a group of service stations involved in the theft of fuel.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency