Stolen Oil: A Gusher of Cash for Mexican Drug Cartels    • Share
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Firemen extinguish a fire on the streets of San Martin
Texmelucan, Puebla, after a deadly explosion of a PEMEX oil
pipeline, on December 19, 2010.  In the early hours of a frosty
February morning, a resident in the Central Mexican town of
Amozoc heard suspicious noises in the field near his house. He
called for help. When the state agents arrived, they found a
truck trying to leave the area — with a whopping 5,000 gallons
of crude oil in the back. The three men on board had drilled a
hole into a major oil pipeline that runs through the town and
sucked the fuel into their truck through a hose. Worst of all,
the alleged culprits were town policemen.  Such oil theft has
become increasingly common in Mexico amid a breakdown in law-
and-order in certain states. Last year, the government oil
monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos or Pemex detected 712 such pipeline
taps — a fivefold increase compared t