Mexico City.- The increase in huachicol in states such as Tamaulipas, where according to Pemex it has exceeded 2019 levels, demonstrates the failure of the federal government’s strategy that weakened local police forces by giving more support to the National Guard, two legislators said.
Román Cifuentes, from the PAN, secretary of the Security Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, and Senator Miguel Ángel Mancera, from the PRD, member of the same Commission in the Senate, recalled that the López Obrador Government eliminated in 2021 the budget for the program to Strengthen Performance in Public Security (Fortaseg), which gave resources to states and municipalities.
“I think the main mistake of this government was leaving the states without resources from Fortaseg, leaving them without an operational capacity to respond to organized crime. And it is also one of the clearest triggers of the failure of the strategy against huachicol,” said Cifuentes.
The deputy from Guanajuato pointed out that the López Obrador government concentrated public security functions in the National Guard, but that these elements always respond late to complaints and that, in the case of highway surveillance, for example, they did not present the training curricula.
“It is the total failure of a strategy that unfortunately never generated coordination between state and municipal police forces. And these are the serious and terrible results,” he said.
Following Pemex’s latest report, REFORMA reported today that illegal hydrocarbon taps in Tamaulipas increased by 64 percent in the first four months of the year compared to 2023, and that the 537 huachicol taps already exceed the 525 that were discovered in all of 2019. The fight against this crime had been on the decline, with 139 taps in 2020; 70 in 2021; 178 in 2022, and 328 last year.
“Tamaulipas is going through a security crisis and it is essential that the local police participate more forcefully,” said Mancera, a member of the Senate Communications and Transportation Committee.
Cifuentes said that the increase in huachicol also generates a general increase in insecurity because criminals have several businesses. The president of the State Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Fecanaco) of Tamaulipas, Julio Almanza Armas, was executed on Tuesday after being harassed by organized crime, huachicoleo and corruption in customs.
“The National Guard will certainly require the support of the Army to stabilize the state, it is a hot zone that must be addressed,” added Mancera.
On July 11, Reforma also reported, using data from Pemex, that fuel theft increased by 123 percent in the first five years of López Obrador’s six-year term, compared to the same period of Enrique Peña’s administration.
From 2019 to 2023, Pemex recorded 64,032 pickets in its distribution system, the highest figure in the company’s history and far from the 28,688 illegal taps recorded between 2013 and 2017.
“We have continuously denounced the lack of results on the part of the federal government and the blindness of not wanting to change the strategy of hugs, tolerance and letting criminals do what they want. It is a strategy in which the National Guard only reports to the President of the Republic, they tell him, they give him the newspaper of all the sad events, of red, negative balance, but nothing changes,” said the PAN deputy.
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