Mexico's Attorney General's Office (FGR) arrested Guadalupe Hernández Hinojosa on August 8, the legal representative of Ingemar S.A. de C.V., a company linked to former Baja California governor Ernesto Ruffo Appel, on charges of alleged participation in a fuel smuggling network. Her arrest brings the total number of detainees in this investigation to nine, which prosecutors describe as the largest fuel smuggling operation ever recorded in the country.
The case began in July 2025, when security personnel discovered 33 abandoned fuel rail tankers carrying hydrocarbons in the municipality of Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila. From that discovery, the FGR identified a network operating through shell companies with alleged complicity from logistics operators, customs agents, and public officials, according to Expansión Política. The scheme blended stolen fuel with legal product to hinder detection and declared lower volumes than those actually transported to evade tax payments. The operation exploited the country's freight rail network, with significant impact on fiscal revenues lost to the public treasury.
The arrest was carried out in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of Mexico City by agents from the Criminal Investigation Agency and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, on charges of organized crime and smuggling. According to El Universal, Hernández Hinojosa appears as an authorized signatory on Ingemar's bank accounts and participated in formalizing contracts related to petroleum product distribution and in dealings with customs authorities. The FGR estimates the network's tax evasion at more than 4 million pesos and has already formally charged Ruffo Appel, arrested on July 16, along with seven other defendants.
The arrest confirms that the railway fuel theft investigation remains active and is expanding its reach beyond the former governor to the corporate structure underpinning the scheme. The FGR stated it will continue pursuing the case to ensure it does not go unpunished, with the detainee remanded to the judge overseeing the case.
This article was drafted with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.