Court reviews Tuxpan fuel-smuggling case
El Diario de Juárez reports that a Supreme Court review of an ANAM-SAT authority dispute could affect an alleged diesel-smuggling case involving three Tuxpan shipments and 593 million pesos in unpaid taxes.
El Diario de Juárez reports that Mexico’s Supreme Court has taken up a case that could jeopardize the country’s largest alleged fiscal-fuel smuggling investigation because of a dispute over which agency had authority to file the criminal complaint. The case concerns diesel imported through the port of Tuxpan between October and December 2019. El Diario de Juárez reports, citing judicial rulings consulted by Reforma, that the shipments totaled at least 89 million liters and generated an estimated 593 million pesos in unpaid taxes.
According to the rulings described by El Diario de Juárez, a court found that the National Customs Agency of Mexico, or ANAM, rather than the Tax Administration Service, should have reported the alleged offenses. The report says ANAM was created by presidential decree during Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration, while Congress did not amend the SAT law that assigned customs-related reporting functions. Mexico’s Supreme Court is reviewing the conflict, and the defendants could be acquitted if the court rules against the SAT’s standing in the case.
El Diario de Juárez reports that the investigation involves the shipping logistics company Navecopa, Dersa Oil & Gas, Impulsora de Productos Sustentables and customs agent Patricia Guerra Miranda. The report says one shipment on the Akeraios carried 28.7 million liters but declared 2.8 million, while the Atlantic Bay carried 28.7 million and declared 7.1 million; a third vessel’s name was redacted in the ruling. The FGR brought charges in 2023 and 2024 for a form of smuggling that does not automatically require pretrial detention, rather than organized crime, according to the report.