The name of the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López Hernández, appears in a couple of documents contained in the thousands of emails from the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) that were leaked a few weeks ago by the Guacamaya hacker group. The intelligence forces of the National Center for Intelligence Fusion (CENFI) have related within their investigations one of the men closest to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with the fuel theft groups that operate in the south of the country, between Tabasco and Veracruz.
The name of the former governor of Tabasco, now one of the politicians who has openly expressed his presidential aspirations, is part of a network that federal investigations have called ‘The Olmec Case’: a well-organized structure that steals fuel from the state-owned Pemex to later distribute them through highways to the north of the country through the co-optation of authorities and officials.
The business consists of buying hydrocarbons from suppliers that “milk” the state-owned company’s pipelines at prices ranging from 2.50 to 4 pesos per liter to resell it later for 17 pesos. Today, the main market for stolen fuel is Monterrey, Nuevo León, but there are signs that the criminal network is seeking to start exports of gasoline to the United States and diesel to Saudi Arabia. At the moment, according to the monitoring of the authorities, this is only in plans.
The documents that link the Tabasco politician with the independent hydrocarbon theft group are dated just last August.
The CENFI, an initiative of the past six-year term and which would have led the investigation, has within its structure elements of the Ministry of the Interior.
According to the communications intercepted by the national intelligence apparatus and reported to Sedena, López Hernández would have received information about deposits and supported with protection members of the network that profits from the fuel stolen from Pemex through agents of the Specialized Investigation Deputy Attorney’s Office. and Organized Crime (SEIDO).
The reports contained in the emails link the name of the Tabasco politician with that of a man whom they identify as ‘El Hamer’, a distributor of stolen fuel and in charge of co-opting authorities for the free transit of gasoline, who would have at official as part of his network of contacts. “The former governor emphasized that he is at the order and if the National Guard stopped them, they would speak directly to the commander of SEIDO at the number they already had,” is reported in one of the documents to which Expansión had access.
The monitoring of the illegal fuel sales network frequently reports the interaction with an official whom they call “the secretary from above” who would give instructions to some members of the structure through other public officials.
The investigations identified the planning of a meeting between one of the leaders of the smuggling network with officials from the Comprehensive Port Administration and the National Customs Agency to receive instructions from the “secretary above.”
The meeting, planned for mid-August, would also have the participation of a businessman. But the meeting, according to the stories, did not take place.
The stories also account for the participation of officials from the state coordination of the National Guard, Pemex and the prosecutor’s offices and a high command of the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, of whom they do not detail more information.
The name of the Tabasco politician is framed within one of the cases that have been marked by the CENFI as one of the six priorities to follow in the southern region of the country. The investigations, according to the leaked files, would have begun just this year, with only one arrest so far. The network would have a relationship with a fraction of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel with a presence in the south of the country. This last group would ask to be informed about the movements of fuel and deposits to allow them to continue with their activities.
President López Obrador yesterday disqualified the documents contained in the leaks and defended the Tabasco man whom he described as “an honest man”, after the documents revealed that the secretary included men related to the aforementioned cartel in his cabinet and has had ties to groups related to fuel theft. The documents leaked by the Guacamaya hacker group would reveal the first relationship of a front-line government official related to fuel theft, one of the great pillars of the Obradorist discourse.
