US OFAC sanctions two Mexican nationals and nine CJNG-linked entities for cross-border fuel-smuggling (huachicol) scheme

Mechanism

OFAC designated Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva and J. Refugio Ruiz Villagomez, plus nine entities they own or control, pursuant to E.O. 14059 (for providing financial, material or technological support to CJNG) and E.O. 13224, as amended (for materially assisting or providing support to CJNG, a designated foreign terrorist organization since 20 February 2025). Juraidini is described as an accountant who creates shell companies and falsifies customs documents to import fuel from the US into Mexico while evading the IEPS fuel-import tax; he owns six Mexican companies (transportation, financial-services and real-estate sectors) plus a UK company, Cucumber Sweet Waves Ltd. Ruiz Villagomez smuggles fuel across ports of entry via Jomadi Logistics & Cargo and Ahavat Logistics Solution, which have moved "tens of millions of dollars" through the US financial system with CJNG-linked counterparties. FinCEN's concurrent supplemental alert notes that in the 12 months following its earlier May 2025 alert on the same typology, it received over 160 SARs detailing more than $7 billion in suspicious activity tied to CJNG and other Mexico-based TCOs' fuel-smuggling networks, concentrated in Texas and Florida.

Severity rationale

Kept at 2 (basis: mixed) — the designation itself is a narrowly scoped SDN-list action (2 individuals, 9 entities), consistent with the register's treatment of comparably sized EO 14059 network designations (e.g. the October 2025 Sinaloa precursor-chemical case, also filed at severity 2). The "mixed" basis reflects the quantified financial scale disclosed in the primary source: Juraidini's operation is stated to generate "tens of millions of dollars annually" for himself and "hundreds of millions of dollars each year" for CJNG overall via the broader huachicol-fiscal scheme, and the concurrent FinCEN alert discloses over $7 billion in SAR-flagged suspicious activity over the prior 12 months — figures that anchor the qualitative judgment without constituting a tariff/quota/coverage figure the magnitude: schema supports.

Downstream implications

• Extends the US EO 14059 counter-narcotics sanctions perimeter to the

"fiscal fuel theft" (huachicol fiscal) financing channel specifically, following a September 2024 predecessor action against the same huachicol typology (not yet in this register).

• Reinforces compliance-screening exposure for US fuel distributors,

freight/logistics companies and financial institutions operating near the US-Mexico border that may unknowingly transact with cartel-controlled shell companies.

• Signals continued US Treasury/FinCEN focus on cross-border hydrocarbon

smuggling as a top-tier, non-drug revenue source for CJNG, alongside the broader 2025-26 push to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Open questions

• Full text of the September 10, 2024 predecessor huachicol designation

referenced in the release has not been located/filed in this register.

• Whether any of the nine designated entities have identifiable US-based

counterparty fuel distributors that would themselves be exposed to secondary-sanctions risk.