Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna, accused of leading a “fiscal fuel theft” (huachicol fiscal) network that brought millions of liters of fuel into Mexico through maritime customs, sent a letter to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
La Silla Rota obtained this handwritten document from the so-called “fuel-theft sailor,” in which Farías Laguna asks the president for her intervention.
The sailor is being held in pretrial detention on charges of organized crime and offenses related to hydrocarbons.
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In the letter, the sailor claims his right to an adequate defense has been violated. “Through the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, I have requested various investigative actions since November 7, 2025, and the Navy has refused to provide them under an arbitrary claim of information being classified, arguing impacts on national security and harm to the Mexican State, which leaves me in a complete state of defenselessness,” he states.
He adds that this refusal by both the Attorney General’s Office and the Navy has prevented him from “proving and demonstrating my innocence regarding the acts they intend to charge me with.”
One year after the major seizure that exposed the fiscal fuel theft network led by Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna, along with his brother Fernando, the defendant requested Sheinbaum’s “assistance.”
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In the handwritten letter, Farías Laguna said he is “the most interested in clarifying these events and in demonstrating the truth, but these delaying tactics and the attempt to classify information only undermine human rights and due process.”
In the letter, he also reiterated his subordination and respect.
Context
Vice Admiral Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna of the Navy, along with his brother Fernando, led a network of 13 people responsible for bringing refined fuel from the United States into Mexico using false documentation, passing it off as additives, oils, or ingredients for fuel production—what is known as fiscal fuel theft, as it involves tax evasion, unlike “traditional” fuel theft.
The Farías Laguna brothers are nephews of Rafael Ojeda Durán, Secretary of the Navy during the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, when the organized crime activities involving hydrocarbons were carried out.
High-ranking naval officers allowed the entry of 31 vessels loaded with millions of liters of fuel into the ports of Tampico and Altamira, in Tamaulipas.
The fiscal fuel theft network was dismantled in March 2025, when 10 million liters of fuel were seized aboard the vessel Challenge Procyon, which had departed from Texas.
Below is the sailor’s handwritten letter.
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