2/9/26 (written by els5 | 10 minute reading time) Raúl Rocha Cantú is a man of many titles: businessman, philanthropist, Miss Universe pageant owner, and formerly, Honorary Consul of Guatemala in Mexico. But according to federal investigators, he also holds the titles of organized crime participant and oil, firearms, and drug smuggler.
His current status, however, is that of “luxury fugitive.” Just days after authorities issued an arrest warrant for his alleged role in a fuel theft ring tied to cartels, Rocha Cantú was not found in a courtroom, but was instead spotted at a bar in Paris, France, on December 23, 2025. Although he was stripped of his diplomatic immunity, a controversial legal suspension granted in January 2026 has temporarily shielded him from capture and prosecution, in a case of high-profile impunity.
On February 6, the Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit froze Raúl Rocha Cantú’s bank accounts in the latest development in the ongoing investigation.
How the Huachicol Network Operated
Rocha Cantú’s case is related to his alleged affiliation to a criminal network in fuel trafficking, or huachicol. The investigation of this network has led to criminal indictments against 11 of its members, including Raúl Rocha Cantú. While Rocha Cantú provided the “business face” of the operation, the network relied on a complex infrastructure of transnational logistics and shell companies to move illicit products.
The operation relied on a physical location known as La Espuela, or The Spur, a railway station in Querétaro, owned by the company Ferropolmers. The facility where the smuggled fuel was stored and where fuel blending took place was referred to as El Patio (The Patio) or La Quinta Chingada (a Mexican slang term for “The Middle of Nowhere”). According to Milenio, this facility would receive stolen tanker cars loaded with fuel, traveling from as far as Guatemala and the United States, and disguise the stolen fuel to be sold to legitimate businesses using a web of businesses to generate fake invoices, including such identified companies as Tabasco Capital, Mada Energy, GN OIL, and AGUI-MAR. Whistleblowers claim that, in addition to illegally storing and reselling hydrocarbons, the facility was also used for firearms trafficking, by removing serial numbers from firearms purchased internationally for illicit resale in the Mexican market.
The network included at least 11 individuals who have been identified. The three three primary actors in the group were Rocha Cantú (the financier), Jacobo Reyes León (the muscle), and Daniel Roldán Morales (the distributor). Rocha Cantú, referred to in wiretaps as Rocha, injected capital into the operation to fund the fuel importation, using his diplomatic and business status to shield the network from public scrutiny. Jacob Reyes León, or “El Yaicob” in wiretaps, is a former Director of Citizen Security, who coordinated the logistics and security protection for the operation, allegedly using his private security firm (Valvón Integral Services) to launder money for Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) and Tepito Union (Unión Tepito). Daniel Roldán Morales, referred to as “El Inge” or “The Engineer” in wiretaps, was the primary purveyor of the smuggling network. Roldán Morales owns a network of gas stations that sold the stolen fuel to the public, with wiretaps capturing Roldán giving instructions to clients on how to purchase the illicit fuel, using a strict cash-only policy to avoid tax trails.
Rocha Cantú’s Pattern of Flight
Rocha Cantú fled during the criminal investigation in December 2025, although this is not the first time he has done so. He has a prior history of operating in cartel-dominated territories, and fleeing the country in 2011, following a tragic incident at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, which was attacked by the Los Zetas (The Z’s) Cartel in a national tragedy.
In that instance, on August 25, 2011, the Casino Royale was attacked by gunmen who doused the entrance in gasoline and used a grenade to set the establishment on fire, trapping patrons inside. 52 people died in the incident, including a pregnant woman. The attack was allegedly a retaliation for the owners refusal to pay extortion fees (“derecho de piso,” or right of way) to the cartel. At the time of the tragedy, Rocha Cantú was publicly perceived as a victim of Mexico’s security crisis. However, as time passed, the public perception of Rocha Cantú changed, given reports of safety violations that may have cost lives in the fire. When government investigators wanted to bring him in for questioning, he went into exile in the United States.
The 2025 Miss Universe Final
Raúl Rocha Cantú did return to Mexico eventually. Even as he continued to dodge the investigation of the fire, he was able to use high-profile investments and positions to improve his public image. According to El País, he founded numerous businesses in the real estate, restaurant, and construction sectors, and was even appointed Honorary Consul General of Guatemala in Toluca, in the state of Mexico.
Amid his successes, Rocha Cantú’s purchase of a 50% stake of the Miss Universe Organization in 2024 provided him a means to influence public perception and curry favor among elites, as illustrated by the case of current Miss Universe titleholder, Fátima Bosch. Ms. Bosch hails from the state of Tabasco and is the daughter of Bernando Bosch, who has served as the director of the Mexican oil company, Pemex, for over 35 years. Ms. Bosch represented Mexico in the Miss Universe pageant that took place in Thailand in November 2025, an event was marred with scandals.
First, another owner of the pageant, Nawat Itsaragrisil, had a conflict with Bosch regarding her lack of participation in promotional activities. Later, in the lead up to the final round, two judges resigned from the contest, with one judge claiming personal reasons and another claiming that there was a lack of transparency.
According to allegations by the second judge, there was a second group of shadow judges who made decisions in secret to determine which contestants would ascend to the pageant’s final round. Some suggest that the Miss Universe prize was a “sweetener,” or bribe, to cement Rocha Cantú’s ties with the Bosch family and ease his access to fuel import permits. In December, following Bosch’s crowning as Miss Universe 2025, Rocha Cantú moved the Miss Universe Organization headquarters to New York, claiming that Mexico could not “guarantee security.”
The History of Huachicol and Current Operations
Raul Rocha Cantú’s case has drawn newfound attention to the growing problem of huachicol in the Mexican fuel industry. What once began as a local crime among smaller groups siphoning fuel from pipelines has turned into a major international operation involving Mexican cartels and high profile individuals like Rocha Cantú.
From the 1990s through the 2000s, huachicol consisted primarily of small groups drilling rudimentary taps into pipelines and selling cheap fuel to their neighbors. This gave huachicol a “social bandit” image, with citizens praying to “El Niño Huachicoleo” to avoid pipeline explosions, according to InsightCrime. In 2007, the Zetas criminal organization militarized the huachicol industry in the Burgos Basin. They realized that controlling the pipelines was more stable than drug trafficking, and thus would provide more consistent profits for the organization. However, it ultimately led to more criminal organizations competing against the government and other criminal groups for control of the pipes. Jane Esberg, an Insight Crime researcher who has studied fuel theft in Mexico, argues that “criminal groups [involved in huachicol] fight over physical territory in a way that they don’t fight over territory to traffic synthetic drugs like fentanyl or methamphetamine.” As a result, these conflicts can cause instability in fuel resources along with security in states, such as Hidalgo and Guanajuato.
The problem of huachicol appears to have grown, and has certainly become more closely monitored, in recent years. The map above represents the number of illegal taps identified annually and by state from 2017 through September 2025. The data is compiled from reports produced by the Institute for Municipal Management, Administration, and Engagement (Instituto para la Gestión, Administración y Vinculación Municipal, IGAVIM) of the Observatorio Ciudadano, a Mexican civil society organization, which gathered the data from Pemex (Petrol Mexico).
Hidalgo has become the country’s fuel theft capital. The state is home to the Tula refinery, one of Mexico’s largest, which processes about 315,000 barrels of crude oil a day. According to the data available from IGAVIM, from 2017 to 2025, Hidalgo had an average of 3,362 illegal pipeline taps annually, the highest in the country.
This visualization shows the huachicol hotspots within the state of Hidalgo. Cuautepec de Hinojosa was a major area for huachicol between 2020 and 2024, accounting for at least 1 in 4 taps nationwide each year.
Criminal organizations have evolved beyond the traditional huachicol methods of pipe tapping. Organized crime groups mislabel fuel imported from the United States in order to evade a levy called the Special Tax on Production and Services (Impuesto Especial sobre Producción y Servicios – IEPS), which is currently at $5.81 per liter, according to BBVA Mexico. The goal of the special tax is to contribute to tax revenues and to regulate the consumption of certain products that are harmful to health or to the environment. Once the fuel is mislabeled, the organizations are able to sell it at rates that undercut legitimate sellers. This method of “fiscal” huachicol is used primarily to benefit larger organizations like the CJNG, as there are many points of influence that are needed to in order to dodge the IEPS fuel tax.
State Consequences: Tabasco and CJNG
Tabasco, the home state of Miss Universe 2025, Fátima Bosch, is among those that have suffered at the hands of the oil theft industry. The CJNG has expanded into the state, causing criminal groups to either align with the CJNG or to fight to defend their territory, driving up violence within the state. Between 2017 and 2025, incidents of illegal tapping in the pipelines, the method of operation for small local cartels, fluctuated, although through the first months of 2025, the taps drastically increased to 133, according to Insight Crime.
This map highlights the two hotspots of huachicol in Tabasco: Cárdenas and Huimanguillo. According to the IGAVIM, Huimanguillo was the historic hub for huachicol in the state, and Cárdenas took the leading spot beginning in 2025.
Raul Rocha Cantú is not the only government official to assist organized crime in huachicol. Tabasco’s security chief, Hernán Bermúdez Requena, who served in the position from 2019 to 2024, was captured in Paraguay in September 2025 for his role in the CJNG Huachicol network. According to Insight Crime, Bermúdez Requena used his power and the Barredora group, a faction of the CJNG, to consolidate the CJNG’s territory over the state’s huachicol spots. The former security chief also allegedly ordered the execution of huachicol leaders for rival groups. While Bermúdez Requena served as leader, the Barredora group split due to a violent conflict in December 2023. Half of the group allied with the CJNG, and the other broke away to establish a competing organization that even attempted to assassinate former leader Bermúdez Requena, according to Insight Crime.
The growing role of organized crime has increased the incidence and perception of violence in the state of Tabasco. The line graph above represents data from the Mexico Peace Index, which measures the economic impact of violence at the local, state, and national levels of Mexico. Each of the metrics between homicide, violent crime, firearms crime, fear of violence, and organized crime, are rated on a scale from 0 to 5, with 5 demonstrating the highest level of perceived danger or violence. Through the past decade, the “Violent Crime” and “Fear of Violence” metrics have remained near the 5 mark, meaning that not only that the state has maintained a high level of violence, but that the percentage of people that perceive Tabasco as unsafe has also remained high.
The National Security Implications
According to Insight Crime, huachicol is a serious economic problem that costs the Mexican government revenue, with estimated losses reaching as high as 177 billion pesos (9.7 billion USD) annually. At the same time, the high level influence of criminal organizations in the energy sector underscores the potential national security implications for Mexico, since it enables criminal organizations like CJNG to tap into those billions for illicit gain. In this sense, the Rocha Cantú case is merely a reminder of the need for greater attention to the problem of huachicol in Mexico.
