Mexican Cartel Turns to ‘Dark Fleet’ to Smuggle Fuel from U.S. and Canada

One of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels is smuggling fuel into the Port of Ensenada with the aid of a “dark fleet” tanker and a Houston-based company, according to an investigation by Reuters.

On March 8, the petroleum tanker Torm Agnes arrived at the port with about 120,000 barrels of diesel, a rare visit for a harbor lacking the infrastructure to safely offload flammable hydrocarbons. Working through the night, workers used makeshift hoses to pump diesel into the fuel trucks lining the docks, according to Reuters, which cited eyewitnesses.

Three Mexican security sources and three others familiar with the operations told the news agency that the risky transfer was the work of cartel-linked smugglers, and indicative of a larger trend within Mexico of criminals flooding the country’s gasoline and diesel market with cut-rate fuel obtained largely from the United States.

But the smugglers didn’t act alone, Reuters said. Houston-based Ikon Midstream initially purchased the diesel in Canada, misreported the fuel as lubricants in paperwork, and chartered the tanker to deliver it to Intanza, a Mexican firm authorities allege is a front for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), according to the report.

Intanza’s name was separately tied to the seizure of a separate tanker in the Port of Tampico on March 21, Reuters said. Investigators have also questioned Mefra Fletes, a trucking firm whose branded vehicles appeared at suspicious offloads in Ensenada and Guaymas.

Ikon Midstream declined to discuss the matter with Reuters. Rhett Kenagy, the executive director of the Texas company, owns property valued at more than $6 million in Houston and previously appeared in a 2022 reality-TV show on yacht sailing, according to the report.

Reuters obtained internal shipping records, customs and port data, tanker-tracking information and satellite images, and interviewed more than 50 people including U.S. and Mexican officials, industry executives, traders and compliance specialists.

The reporting shows how smugglers exploit gaps across North America’s energy chain, from falsified documents and shell companies to rapid offloads at unconventional sites, aided by bribes to corrupt officials, to flood Mexico with untaxed fuel, the news agency said.