On Thursday, July 16, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) arrested former PAN governor Ernesto Ruffo Appel in Ensenada, Baja California, on charges of organized crime and fuel smuggling.
The network he led—according to Prosecutor Ernestina Godoy—brought gasoline and diesel in from Texas while declaring barely 10% of the actual volume transported in rail tank cars; this allegedly caused a loss to the public treasury of over 4 billion pesos between January and July 2025.
The investigation, conducted by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, identified what Godoy described as “the largest fuel smuggling network detected to date.”
In addition to Ruffo Appel, the operation involved Ricardo Thompson Navarro—son of port businessman Ricardo Thomson Ramírez—who was arrested the same day in the Zona Playitas neighborhood of Ensenada.
The scheme began at refineries in Texas, where the network purchased gasoline and diesel. Upon crossing the border into Mexico via customs points in Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Camargo, Matamoros, and Reynosa—all in the state of Tamaulipas—linked companies submitted customs declarations stating volumes far below the actual amounts.
