Security & Strategic Review - December 2015 (ISSN 1741-4202)

MEXICO | Getting tough on oil theft from Pemex. On 10 December the lower chamber of congress approved, with cross-party support, a new law providing for the imposition of harsher penalties for the illegal tapping of Pemex oil pipelines. It then passed upward to the senate for final approval. This came after the failure of a policy adopted last February to deter the thieves by pumping only unrefined fuels through the pipelines. Not only did the thefts fail to decline, the number of detected illegal taps increased sharply ¾ a development that has been attributed by the authorities to the spreading influence of organised crime in this activity.