HOUSTON — A new U.S. indictment accuses two Mexican nationals doing business in Texas of bribing officials at Mexico’s state energy company Pemex — a scheme that appears to be just one piece of a vast conspiracy outlined in U.S. sanctions filings in May, pointing to cartel-linked operations that have penetrated the global energy sector and are tied to terror-designated networks importing Chinese chemical precursors to flood North America with fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other narcotics.

Unsealed in the Southern District of Texas in August 2025, the charges allege that between 2019 and 2021, Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez and Mario Alberto Avila Lizarraga paid $150,000 in cash and provided luxury goods to officials at Pemex and its exploration arm, PEP, to infiltrate the company’s auditing branch.

While not explicitly alleged in the filings, The Bureau’s analysis suggests the bribes likely enabled oil companies and traders acting as fronts for cartels — including the Jalisco New Generation, Sinaloa, or Gulf networks — to steal crude oil from Mexico, process it through U.S. refineries, and sell it worldwide.

The 21-page indictment — along with numerous earlier filings related to U.S. Treasury, FinCEN, Homeland Security, and DEA investigations — points to the cartels’ deeply insidious corporate infiltration, which has allowed them to function as a kind of shadow state in Mexico and to embed themselves across many countries worldwide, particularly in jurisdictions where law enforcement is weak or compromised.

Court records show that Rovirosa was no stranger to high-level U.S. agencies: in March 2023, he filed a petition in Washington, D.C., against the Department of Homeland Security and Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking action on an immigration matter involving the Immigrant Investor Program Office — before abruptly dropping the case six weeks later.

Since March 2016, he has held U.S. lawful permanent resident status and lived in Texas — making him a “domestic concern” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Prosecutors allege that between 2019 and 2021, Rovirosa and Avila conspired to bribe officials at Pemex and its exploration arm, PEP, with cash and luxury goods. In return, three senior officials allegedly reversed audits into six Mexican oil companies tied to the defendants and awarded contracts for Rovirosa’s firms to build roads and infrastructure.

The government’s case includes damning WhatsApp exchanges between Mexican officials and the defendants. In October 2019, for example, a Mexican official allegedly informed Avila that, based on his conversations with others at Pemex and PEP, Rovirosa’s Mexican oil companies could resume submitting invoices for payment. Avila replied that he would inform Rovirosa. Three days later, “Foreign Official #1” messaged again, the indictment says, confirming he had received the Louis Vuitton handbag promised to his wife. Avila’s incriminating reply, according to the indictment: “You’re welcome, bud; you’ve earned it.”

Oil Theft, Fentanyl, and Trade-Based Laundering: A Converging Cartel Revenue Engine

The allegations come against a much larger backdrop. On May 1, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in coordination with OFAC, the DEA, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations, issued an anti–money laundering alert warning that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and other Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations are engaged in industrial-scale theft and smuggling of Pemex crude across the U.S. southwest border. The cartels and their huachicoleros — oil thieves — primarily obtain crude by bribing corrupt Pemex employees and local officials, but also by drilling illegal taps into pipelines, stealing from refineries, and threatening workers. These operations have fueled violence and corruption across Mexico and, in some cases, triggered catastrophic pipeline explosions.

Treasury and law enforcement officials note that the scheme exploits Mexico’s reliance on U.S. refineries for sour and heavy crude, providing cover for stolen product to move alongside legitimate flows. Many complicit importers operate in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the Eagle Ford Shale, the Permian Basin, Houston, and Dallas, using front and shell companies to receive, store, and distribute the oil. While prosecutors have not formally tied Rovirosa’s bribery case to this broader theft-and-distribution network, the geography, timing, and Pemex nexus place the charges in the same operational landscape U.S. agencies identify as both a critical non-drug revenue stream and a key trade-based money laundering platform for Mexico’s most powerful cartels.

According to FinCEN, the smuggling process begins with stolen crude moved to storage tanks in cartel-controlled territories, often in major Mexican oil hubs such as Veracruz, Altamira, and Monterrey. From there, it is transported across the U.S. southwest border, first to vacant lots outfitted with mobile storage tanks operated by U.S. companies under the control of Mexican brokers or complicit U.S. importers. These fronts then list themselves in trade documents as the importers and buyers, with complicit importers recorded as the ultimate consignees. False paperwork, often mischaracterizing the shipments as “waste oil” or hazardous materials, enables the illicit crude to enter U.S. commerce and be refined and sold across the Western Hemisphere, “as well as in Japan, India, Africa, and other foreign jurisdictions — most of whom are likely unaware of the illegitimate source of the crude oil,” FinCEN says.

While not named in the indictment against Rovirosa and Avila, U.S. government sanctions suggest a major figure — Cesar Morfin Morfin — may loom behind the networks implicated in Pemex corruption schemes. On May 1, 2025, OFAC sanctioned numerous Mexican individuals and companies under Executive Orders 14059 and 13224, “Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism,” citing their direct or indirect links to CJNG’s fuel theft and oil smuggling operations along the U.S. southwest border. “This network generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually, benefitting CJNG, through a slew of criminal activities, including fentanyl trafficking, fuel theft, and smuggling stolen crude oil from Mexico across the southwest border,” the sanctions notice states.

OFAC designated Morfin (a.k.a. “Primito”), is described as a CJNG cell leader in Tamaulipas.

“Primito is involved in the transportation, importation, and distribution of narcotics, including fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana, into the United States,” the notice says. “He has also been known to import fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals sourced from China.”

According to OFAC, Primito’s lavish lifestyle has included exotic animals and dozens of luxury vehicles. Recently, he and his network have shifted their focus toward stolen fuel, specifically crude oil smuggling into the United States, given its high profit margins. Primito allegedly acquires stolen crude from co-opted Pemex employees and other CJNG members. Leveraging control over port-of-entry bridges between Tamaulipas and Texas, he is said to charge fees to trucks moving crude into the United States via these routes. His subordinates and associates allegedly falsify customs documents to facilitate cross-border smuggling and operate front companies to sell stolen fuel, some directly to retail gas stations.

The FinCEN alert also notes that these transactions align with sophisticated trade-based money laundering schemes seen in global drug-finance networks. After selling the stolen crude oil on U.S. and international markets, complicit U.S. importers receive domestic and cross-border wire transfers from third-party brokers, often routed through multiple accounts and jurisdictions. The importers then wire funds to U.S. and Mexican companies controlled by the Mexican brokers, who in turn pay the cartels their share of illicit profits. To disguise the transfers, wire instructions often falsely claim the payments are for invoices tied to waste oil or hazardous materials.

Cartel-Style Corruption Inside Pemex: Bribes for Access, Contracts, and Cover

In the newly unsealed indictment, prosecutors allege that Rovirosa’s scheme targeted three senior Pemex insiders, all classified as “foreign officials” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Foreign Official #1 was a senior internal audit manager at PEP; Foreign Official #2 was a procurement coordinator at Pemex; and Foreign Official #3 worked in Pemex and PEP’s land infrastructure division.

Between June 2019 and October 2021, Rovirosa and Avila allegedly offered, paid, promised, and authorized bribes — cash, luxury goods, and other benefits — to secure favorable treatment for their network of companies. The aim, prosecutors contend, was to influence Pemex and PEP decisions, gain improper advantages, and lock in contracts worth millions, in violation of the FCPA’s core prohibition on corrupt payments to foreign officials.

The scheme’s opening phase focused on Pemex’s audit gatekeepers. In June and July 2019, Avila, at Rovirosa’s direction, began WhatsApp outreach to Foreign Official #1, pressing for a favorable resolution to an ongoing Pemex audit. Avila allegedly promised a Louis Vuitton handbag for the official’s wife, and in July offered a Hublot watch worth about $12,500, joking, “A Hublot as a commission haha.” On July 24, Foreign Official #1 messaged back with the outcome: “Mission accomplished!!!” The reduced audit penalty — about 225,000 pesos instead of one million — favored Rovirosa’s companies.

During this same period, prosecutors say, cash payments were also offered to Foreign Official #3 to authorize Pemex and PEP payments to certain Mexico Energy Companies. These actions were part of a pattern: closing audits on favorable terms, lifting restrictions blocking payments and new contracts, ignoring disqualifying technical reports to keep bids alive, and steering a mechanical integrity contract. By 2020, prosecutors allege, the network had secured Pemex and PEP business worth at least $2.5 million.

The scheme then zeroed in on the lucrative “Roads and Platforms” infrastructure project. On February 22, 2020, Foreign Official #1 and Avila allegedly discussed how much Avila and Rovirosa would pay Foreign Official #2 for his help. Avila wrote, “You tell me how we should divvy it up… But yes I’ll give [Foreign Official #2] ten for sure.” Six days later, Foreign Official #1 sent Avila the official Pemex award document showing Mexico Energy Company #1 and #2 had won the contract — valued between 12 and 30 million pesos — along with, “Mission accomplished, Bro!!!” and a reminder to deliver the promised payments.

In early March 2020, Rovirosa and Avila allegedly coordinated cash deliveries via trusted associates. On March 3, Avila requested bank details from his assistant, Co-Conspirator #1. That day, Rovirosa instructed Co-Conspirator #2 to make two transfers of roughly 600,000 pesos each from a Mexico Energy Company #6 account — one to Avila’s relative and one to Co-Conspirator #1. The following day, Avila’s relative moved his share into Co-Conspirator #1’s account.

The indictment’s narrative aligns with U.S. anti–money laundering and sanctions alerts issued in May 2025, describing how cartels embed operatives inside Pemex’s compliance, procurement, and infrastructure arms to facilitate oil theft, smuggling, and trade-based laundering. By corrupting officials in precisely these roles, Rovirosa’s network would have gained the kind of institutional leverage that allows cartel-linked schemes to operate undetected.

Sam Cooper

Aug 14, 2025

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