The images are those of a country at war recently bombed, buildings razed by explosions, columns of smoke and fire, debris covering the streets. It is only the last chapter of the huachicol, the drilling of pipelines to steal fuel, gas or gasoline, which from time to time explodes into the air. On this occasion it was in Puebla: one dead and more than a dozen injured, some very serious. The disaster reminds that the policies undertaken to stop these thefts that leave millions of dollars in annual losses have stalled. The Army cannot handle this crime either.
The governor of Puebla, Miguel Barbosa, has decreed two days of mourning for the catastrophe this Sunday, which keeps eight seriously injured, five of them intubated and another six in a “delicate” situation. The material loss count is not small either: almost 200 homes affected with severe structural damage. All these repairs are what the figures refer to when they speak of about 60,000 million pesos a year in losses derived from these thefts. There are thousands of clandestine intakes that pierce the pipelines and that serve organized crime and blatant retail robbery enters the population, who come with their jugs when gasoline flows. Accidents when fuel turns to fire, add up to hundreds of corpses throughout the country.
The huachicol has been reborn in Puebla. The clandestine shots, more than 100 per month on average, have experienced an increase of 7% this year. Despite this, Governor Barbosa announced a decrease in these crimes at the beginning of October, when he participated in a Security table with the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval. “The theft of gasoline has dropped enormously, it is five times less than what we had at the start of our government,” said Barbosa on that occasion and reported that criminals are now looking at the theft of gas.
Gas or gasoline, the thing is that these crimes have taken over again in several states. Puebla is being very affected, but also in Baja California, Hidalgo, Veracruz. In Guanajuato, some of the leaders of organized crime bear that name. José Antonio Yépez, el Marro, was arrested on August 2 of last year. He was known as the capo del huachicol in Guanajuato. The Santa Rosa de Lima cartel thus built its crime emporium. The arrest of the leader was a medal for the Morena government in its fight against this criminal practice that opens hundreds of holes in the accounts of the state oil company Pemex.
2018 was a terrible year. Pemex reported almost 15,000 clandestine pickets in its pipelines that caused losses of 2,068 million pesos. The problem was serious for the Peña Nieto government, and his successor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, conspired against the crime of fuel. He used the Army, watched the traps at the gas stations, and the numbers, shootings and deaths began to drop. But everything seems to have been something temporary. Although the levels of 2018 are not reached, Pemex has counted 1,185 illegal drilling in Puebla between January and July of this year, although the impact on losses is less than before, just over a million pesos.
This crime often occurs in daylight or with the knowledge of many. Last April, a gasoline leak uncovered a huge plant dedicated to the theft of fuel in a neighborhood of Ecatepec (State of Mexico). The photos of that were also impressive. Thousands of square meters of solar next to the houses where high capacity drums and pipes were accumulated as if it were a legal industry. Then, like yesterday in the San Pablo Xochimehuacán neighborhood, investigations and measures against this crime were announced, which almost never have satisfactory results.
The current figures outline a Mexico stagnant in the fight against this crime. There are no gunshots, but homes continue to explode and take the lives of neighbors while the losses shake month after month the profits of the state oil company.
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