- Oil theft has become increasingly common in Mexico.
- As organized-crime groups have pursued oil theft, oil workers have become targets for bribes, intimidation, and violence.
- There is little sign local, state, or the federal government in Mexico are able to mount an effective response.
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Mexican drug cartels are preying on a multibillion-dollar industry and taking a deadly toll on the workers who run it
"The revenue that's being generated by the petroleum [theft] is making a lot of these cartels much more powerful."
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Mexico's oil industry has gotten increasing attention from criminal organizations, including powerful groups like the Zetas and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
The number of illegal taps found on state oil firm Pemex's 14,000-kilometer pipeline network has surged, rising from 132 in 2001 to 3,348 in 2014. In 2017, Pemex reported 9,509 such taps — an all-time high.
Oil thieves have siphoned away billions of dollars from Mexican state coffers. But their enthusiasm for Mexico's energy industry is also taking a deadly toll on the workers who keep it running.
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Criminal groups "go in and they get some of these Pemex employees, and they intimidate them [into] giving them information as to the routes that some of the petroleum is going to be taking, the timelines, how many people are working at these refineries, the amount of crew members ... they get all the details," Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider.
Reuters found press records of at least seven alleged murders of Pemex employees around Salamanca since 2012. The state attorney general's office said it had records of three suspected murders of Pemex employees in recent years.
In 2016, as Arredondo, the pump technician, faced continued attacks and threats from oil thieves, two colleagues at the refinery were killed. Family members of the victims told him they had contacted police about threats from those thieves.
In October that year, Arredondo was stabbed outside a bar. After recovering for two months, he returned home and again found gang members there. "I realized that this was never going to end," he told Reuters. That night, he left for Canada.
Gangs and fuel thieves "kidnap some of these employees and then they intimidate them, and they tell them their either going to kill them or they're going to kill their families," Vigil said. The employees "go along with it because they're fearful for their lives and the lives of their families."
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One day after Reuters published its report in January detailing Mexican criminal influence in the oil industry, Capt. Tadeo Lineol Alfonzo Rojas, the head of security at the refinery in Salamanca, was shot and killed while driving in the area. One of his sons was wounded in the attack.
The illegal oil trade doesn't have the same risks as moving illegal drugs through Mexico and over international borders, Vigil said. "Keep in mind that only some people use drugs, but everybody uses petroleum, and so it's become a very lucrative business."
The illegal fuel trade could not function without official complicity. Between 2006 and 2015, 123 Pemex workers and 12 former employees were arrested for suspected participation in fuel theft, according to documents obtained by El Universal in early 2017.
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