Eleven U.S. companies are being sued by Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex for purchasing as much as $300 million worth of fuel they say was stolen by drug cartels and smuggled across the border to America.
Pemex’s suit was filed in a U.S. district court in Texas on Sunday, and claims some companies worked with Mexican drug gangs to forge documents and illegally bring natural gas condensates in the U.S.
The complaint filed by the Pemex’s exploration and production (PEP) unit read:
“The defendants have participated and profited—knowingly or unwittingly—in the trafficking of stolen condensate in the United States and have thereby encouraged and facilitated the Mexican organized crime groups that stole the condensate.
“PEP has lost large amounts of its condensate, at times approaching 40 percent of the production of condensate from the Burgos field. Since 2006, more than $300 million worth of condensate has been stolen.
“Since August 2006, no Pemex entity has sold PEP condensate. Thus, any Mexican condensate which entered the United States after August 2006 was stolen and brought in without title or right.”
Mexican relies heavily on the revenue from its state-controlled oil industry, as it accounts on about 40 percent of the government’s annual revenues.
Pemex truckers were held at gunpoint, the lawsuit says, and the criminals even built pipelines and tunnels to move the gas condensates into the U.S.
