A volume of 140,000 liters of gas was seized in the state of Puebla in an operation against fuel theft in which 23 people were arrested, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) reported today.
The FGR operation also seized four buildings, 40 tankers, three trailers, 53 cylinders and 15,000 pesos (about $ 778), the prosecution said in a statement.
A complaint received last December took federal police to a clandestine takeover from which tankers carried LP gas (liquefied petroleum) to a home in Puebla, central Mexico, he said.
The authorities did not specify the location of the clandestine takeover or of the buildings, although Puebla is within the Mexican states with a higher incidence of fuel theft.
In its territory is located the so-called Red Triangle, a set of municipalities in which robbery through intakes in oil pipelines became a juicy business in recent years.
The volume of LP gas seized in Puebla has an approximate commercial value of 1.4 million pesos ($ 74,792) in Mexico City.
Without specifying the charges against the 23 detainees in the operation, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that all of them will be put at the disposal of a federal judge who will be in charge of determining their legal status.
Since the start of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador on December 1, 2018, the government launched a frontal combat to the theft of hydrocarbons, which according to official data costs the country about 65,000 million pesos (3,371 million dollars) per year. .
The authorities reinforced security and surveillance in the pipelines and decided to use tankers to move the fuel, which caused fuel shortages in ten states in early 2019.
So far this year, the Mexican authorities have closed a dozen clandestine outlets in the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Puebla, Guanajuato and Mexico City, where they have been found in areas of high urban concentration.
The most complicated moment recorded in this policy against fuel theft occurred on January 18 when a clandestine takeover in Tlahuelilpan (Hidalgo) called hundreds of people who ignored the military warnings.
At least 128 people died in the explosion of the clandestine takeover of Tlahuelilpan, the vast majority in hospitals where they received specialized care, while 19 others are still under medical care. (EFE) .-
