WASHINGTON, USA – The US Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in coordination with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), is issuing this Alert to urge financial institutions to be vigilant in detecting, identifying, and reporting suspicious activity connected to the smuggling of stolen crude oil from Mexico across the US southwest border into the United States by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, and other Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) — frequently known as the “Cartels.”
In recent years, fuel theft in Mexico, including crude oil smuggling, has become the most significant non-drug illicit revenue source for the Cartels and enables them to sustain their global criminal enterprises and drug trafficking operations into the United States. This Alert is being issued in coordination with an OFAC sanctions action.
According to US 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 state-owned energy company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), to complicit, small US-based oil and natural gas companies (hereafter “US importers”) operating near the US southwest border. Through these schemes, the Cartels are stealing billions of dollars of crude oil from Pemex, fueling rampant violence and corruption across Mexico, and undercutting legitimate oil and natural gas companies in the United States.
In response to the growing national security threat of the Cartels, on January 20, 2025, President Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S. southwest border and issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14157 to authorize the designation of the Cartels and certain other organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).5 As part of the Trump Administration’s whole-of-government effort to defend the U.S. homeland and achieve the total elimination of the Cartels, Treasury, including FinCEN, is leveraging its authorities and resources to counter Cartel illicit revenue streams. Treasury’s efforts include implementing designations of eight foreign Cartels and criminal organizations as FTOs and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) and designating over 30 individuals and entities in four sanctions actions against Mexican Cartels since the President’s declaration. Treasury will continue to target the Cartels and their affiliates pursuant to both counternarcotics and counterterrorism sanctions authorities.
This Alert is one of several recent advisory products FinCEN has issued to help financial institutions detect, identify, and prevent TCO-related revenue streams and is consistent with FinCEN’s National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Priorities, which identified drug trafficking organization activity, TCO activity, and corruption, as well as with Treasury’s 2024 National Illicit Finance Strategy.
This Alert: (1) provides an overview of methodologies and financial typologies associated with the Cartels’ oil smuggling operations; (2) highlights red flag indicators; and (3) reminds financial institutions of their reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The information contained in this Alert is derived from FinCEN’s analysis of open-source reporting, BSA reporting, and information from law enforcement partners.
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