Today, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing an Alert in coordination with the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations, urging financial institutions to be vigilant in detecting, identifying, and reporting suspicious activity connected to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, and other Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations smuggling stolen crude oil from Mexico across the U.S. southwest border into the United States. In recent years, fuel theft in Mexico, including crude oil smuggling, has become the most significant non-drug illicit revenue source for the Cartels. According to U.S. law enforcement authorities, the Cartels are using complicit Mexican brokers in the oil and natural gas industry to smuggle and sell crude oil stolen from Mexico’s Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to complicit, small U.S.-based oil and natural gas companies operating near the U.S. southwest border. As part of these schemes, the Cartels are stealing billions of dollars of crude oil, fueling rampant violence and corruption across Mexico, and undercutting legitimate oil and natural gas companies in the United States.
FinCEN's Alert provides an overview of methodologies and financial typologies associated with the Cartels’ oil smuggling operations, highlights red flag indicators, and reminds financial institutions of their reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act. This Alert was issued concurrently with an OFAC sanctions action against Mexican individuals and companies linked to CJNG’s fuel theft and oil smuggling operations on the U.S. southwest border.
FinCEN Alert (FIN-2025-Alert002): https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN-Alert-Oil-Smuggling-FINAL-508C.pdf
Treasury Press Release: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0125