FinCEN issues Alert on Fiscal Fuel Theft

Alongside OFAC's designations, FinCEN issued Supplemental Alert FIN-2026-Alert003 on fiscal fuel theft (huachicol fiscal), building on its May 2025 Cartel Oil Smuggling Alert. The Alert explains how CJNG, Sinaloa, Gulf Cartel, and other Mexico-based TCOs exploit the U.S.-Mexico energy trade, complicit U.S. fuel traders sell to Mexican brokers holding CNE (commercialization) permits but not SENER (import) permits, who then falsify customs paperwork to evade Mexico's IEPS import tax. Since the May 2025 Alert, financial institutions have reported over $7 billion in suspicious activity across 160+ SARs, concentrated in Texas and Florida. Key takeaways for financial institutions: 1. SAR keyword requirement: Reference "FIN-2026-FISCALFUELTHEFT" in SAR field 2 and in the narrative when filing related reports; the same term goes in the Comments section of Form 8300 filings (Box 1b). 2. Core red flag — permit mismatch: The single highest-value red flag is a U.S. oil/gas customer receiving wire transfers from a Mexican counterparty that holds a CNE permit but lacks a SENER import permit — this is not standard practice in legitimate energy trade. 3. Payment pattern indicators: Watch for multiple large/non-descriptive wires from a single Mexican company, digital asset (especially stablecoin) payments where fiat/trade finance would be customary, structured cash deposits at border-area branches outside the customer's normal geography, and pass-through account behavior (funds received then immediately forwarded). 4. Shell company markers: Small, recently formed U.S. LLCs/sole proprietorships sharing names with Mexican companies, registered to residential addresses, with little online presence, or with transaction volumes/profit margins inconsistent with legitimate peers. 5. Downstream money laundering signs: Complicit U.S. fuel traders often convert proceeds into luxury goods, real estate, or investment assets — outgoing transactions to unrelated sectors (luxury vehicles, jewelry, vacation rentals) from an oil/gas customer is a flag. 6. Enhanced due diligence tools: Institutions should consider requesting export documentation and SENER-permit verification for customers exporting fuel to Mexico, and are encouraged to use Section 314(b) safe harbor information-sharing given the cross-institution, repeat-actor nature of these networks. 7. No blanket de-risking: FinCEN explicitly cautions against wholesale de-risking of the oil/gas, freight, and logistics sectors — red flags should trigger risk-based review, not automatic account closure.