Theft of oil by drug traffickers is a blow to Mexico government

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to US companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderon’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling.

Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderon launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Authorities said they have traced much of the oil rustling to the Zetas, a criminal organization founded by former military commandos. Although the Zetas initially served as a protection arm of the powerful Gulf cartel, they now call their own shots and dominate criminal enterprise in the oil-rich states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

“The Zetas are a parallel government,’’ said Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a federal lawmaker who heads a national committee on energy. “They practically own vast stretches of the pipelines, from the highway to the very door of the oil companies.’’

The Zetas earn millions of dollars by “taxing’’ the oil pipelines - organizing the theft themselves or taking a cut from anyone who does the stealing, according to Mexican authorities. The US Treasury Department this summer designated two Zeta commanders as narcotics “kingpins,’’ which allows authorities to seize assets.

The Zetas often work with former Pemex employees, according to Ramon Pequeno Garcia, chief of antidrug operations at Mexico’s Public Security Ministry. The former employees “are highly skilled people who have the technical knowledge to extract oil from the pipelines. They are now under the control of the Zetas,’’ Pequeno said.

This year, executives of four Texas companies pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiring to receive and sell millions of dollars worth of stolen petroleum condensate. US law enforcement officials said in interviews that they have no evidence showing that the men were connected to drug traffickers.

During his September arraignment in Houston, Arnoldo Maldonado, president of Y Gas & Oil, pleaded guilty to receiving about $327,000 to coordinate at least three deliveries of tankers filled with stolen condensate to another Texas company, Continental Fuels, according to a court transcript of the hearing.

Asked by US District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. how the condensate had been stolen from Pemex, Maldonado replied: “I have no idea on that, sir.’’

Donald Schroeder, a former president of Houston-based Trammo Petroleum, pleaded guilty in May to buying $2 million worth of stolen Mexican condensate, according to a transcript of the hearing. Schroeder resold the condensate to another company, BASF, for a $150,000 profit, prosecutors told the court.

A spokesman for BASF, which has not been implicated in the case, said the company was unaware that the material was stolen and is cooperating with the investigation.

In August, US authorities presented the Mexican government with an oversize check for $2.4 million as a repayment.

Pemex reported losing $715 million worth of oil to theft last year. The company said it discovered 396 clandestine taps. This year, Pemex projects it will lose at least $350 million to oil pilfering. Nearly half of the thefts occur in the rugged hills around Veracruz, a largely rural state situated in a region with 2,136 miles of pipeline running from the Gulf of Mexico to refineries in other parts of the country.

To steal the oil, Mexican authorities said, thieves sometimes use safe houses from which they build extensive tunnel networks leading to the pipelines. They fabricate powerful drills that enable them to puncture the highly pressurized steel pipes and extract the oil without causing spills or suspicious drops in pressure.