US returns $2.4M in stolen oil money to Mexico

US returns $2.4M in stolen oil money to Mexico

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Associated Press
2009-08-12 01:33 AM

U.S. officials handed $2.4 million in proceeds from stolen oil products to Mexican authorities as part of a case against a Houston importer.
The money is the first batch seized during an investigation into oil siphoned from Mexican pipelines and smuggled across the border _ in some cases by drug cartels. Authorities expect more arrests and seizures.

Houston-based Trammo Petroleum made the payment after its president admitted to buying and reselling products stolen from the Mexican oil monopoly Pemex earlier this year. Trammo paid the restitution given to Mexican authorities.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary John Morton were at an event marking the handover on Tuesday with Mexico's tax administrator, Alfredo Gutierrez Mena, in San Antonio.