Treasury sanctions Mexico fuel-smuggling network tied to CJNG cartel

On June 30, the Treasury Department sanctioned two Mexican nationals and nine entities over a fuel-smuggling network that funneled gasoline, diesel and naphtha from the United States into Mexico for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG.

FinCEN issued a supplemental alert aimed at banks and other financial institutions. The network relied on falsified customs documents, shell companies and bribed officials to evade Mexico’s fuel import levy, known as IEPS, while moving fuel across the border and turning it into cash for cartel-linked operators.

FinCEN called the scheme fiscal fuel theft, an evolution of Mexico’s long-running huachicol market. Fuel theft and fiscal fuel theft have become the most significant non-drug illicit revenue source for cartels, and the alert cited public reporting that a quarter to a third of fuel sold in Mexico may be illicit. The same playbook is being used to move money through layered companies on both sides of the border and to obscure proceeds through luxury goods, real estate and investment assets.

The action was coordinated through a South Texas Homeland Security Task Force-led investigation involving the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, IRS-Criminal Investigation, the Bureau of Industry and Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It was also developed with Mexico’s financial intelligence unit, the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera.

Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva and J. Refugio Ruiz were among the targets, along with Ruiz’s logistics companies Jomadi Logistics & Cargo and Ahavat Logistics Solution. The network supported CJNG’s broader revenue stream, which has grown beyond narcotics into fuel theft and oil smuggling. Treasury put earlier CJNG-linked fuel schemes at hundreds of millions of dollars, and a September 2024 action put another network at tens of millions.

FinCEN told financial institutions to flag related activity under the keyword FIN-2026-FISCALFUELTHEFT.