Mexico's Pemex Losing Oil To Cartels

According to a report by Business Insider, the director-general of Pemex, Mexico's state run oil firm, fuel theft costs the company over 1.6 billion-dollars a year. In a report released earlier this month, Pemex claims that in just the first two months of 2018, fuel thieves drilled 2,274 illegal taps in the company's pipelines during the first two months of 2018. Business Insider reports that gangs and organized-crime groups are mainly responsible for the fuel theft, however local residents, as well as Pemex employees, have also been accused of stealing fuel. Mexico's Public Administration Secretariat said in October 2017 that it had opened an investigation into at least 40 Pemex workers in the northern state of Chihuahua on suspicion of stealing fuel.