US Jensen trial maps Pemex crude theft pipeline into Texas

Court filings in the US case against Texas oil trader James Jensen and his family are sketching a familiar North American supply chain: state monopoly product is stolen, relabeled, routed through shell companies, and sold into the world’s deepest market—while governments congratulate themselves for “cracking down” on the very incentives they created.

According to El País, US prosecutors allege the Jensens moved more than 4,000 shipments of Mexican crude and condensate between 2018 and 2025, declaring the cargo as “waste of lube oils” and “petroleum distillates” to reduce scrutiny and avoid taxes. The aggravating detail is provenance: the oil was allegedly stolen from Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, feeding the huachicol (fuel theft) economy that has become a core revenue stream for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

El País reports that a cooperating businessman—now described in US intelligence as integrated into CJNG’s structure—told agents he collected extortion payments and used the proceeds to bribe federal and local officials. A DEA-led intelligence report cited in the case describes Mexican customs agents falsifying export documents so the product could cross into Texas. The same report links a firm, Luxemborg Trading LLC, to the intermediary and notes transfers between the informant and Zachary Jensen.

What emerges is less a single “smuggling ring” than an arbitrage machine built on regulation: fuel taxes and customs classifications create margins; Pemex’s monopoly and weak internal controls create the supply; and cartel control of territory and logistics provides enforcement. Governments, meanwhile, supply the paperwork theater. Mexican tax authorities have sanctioned shell companies used to move “astronomical quantities” of petroleum products into Texas, El País says—after the fact, once the profit has already been socialized into bribes, kickbacks, and cartel payroll.

“Sanctions” and export controls can work like a tariff with extra steps. Every choke point becomes a rent-extraction opportunity for intermediaries who can secure documents, protection, and banking access. When customs classifications determine whether a shipment is taxed or flagged, falsified labels become a financial instrument.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government has asked Washington to extradite the Jensens, according to El País. That request is politically convenient: it frames the problem as foreign criminality rather than a predictable outcome of a state oil monopoly, politicized enforcement, and a cross-border market hungry for discounted product.

The Jensen case is unlikely to end fuel theft. It will, however, reshuffle who gets paid to move it—and who gets to claim victory at the podium.