An increase in the arrival of oil tankers and “lubricating oil” vessels at the Port of Progreso over the past three years helps explain the meteoric growth of Luis Felipe Saidén Ojeda’s real estate holdings, which rest on his gas stations—a novel and highly profitable business that generates dividends of up to 70 million pesos per vessel carrying tax-exempt hydrocarbons, and which could explain why Yucatán was the state with the highest number of seizures of illegal fuel nationwide in 2024.
In Yucatán, the modus operandi is the same as in the ports in northern Mexico. Ships dock at the piers and declare that they are carrying “various types of hydrocarbons.” Customs approves the shipment. The unloading and distribution in tanker trucks or cisterns then takes place. No one notices anything unusual—not a single sailor, not a single state police officer. In the end, they were not “various types of hydrocarbons,” but disguised gasoline, illegal as soon as the zero tax payment was achieved in order to deliver it to gas station concessionaires, who obtain multimillion-peso profits through this crime.
Among the concessionaires dedicated to the purchase and sale of “gasoline and diesel,” the Saidén surname appears again and again. Sol Yucatán has reported that north of Mérida, on the Mérida-Progreso highway, Luis Felipe Saidén Ojeda owns 75 percent of the shares of Estación de Servicio Dzityá S.A. de C.V., with the remaining 25 percent held by Luis Omar Saidén Quiroz. The same occurs in Caucel, where Saidén owns 90 percent of the shares of Estación de Servicio Caucel S.A. de C.V.
What is interesting is that one of the methods for introducing illegal fuel into gas stations, detected at the federal level by the same Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, is dilution or mixing, in which legally obtained fuel lots are combined with fuel acquired illegally, making the fiscal huachicol crime undetectable, something extremely valuable to gas station owners.
The above is relevant because the benefits from the transfer of fuel do not reach ordinary citizens, but rather those engaged in buying and selling it, a fact that has been corroborated nationwide following the seizure of ships at the ports of Tampico and Altamira, and more recently with the arrest of Ernesto Ruffo and his company Ingemar, which was implicated in the crime.
This “novel” crime has placed Yucatán under international scrutiny during the same period in which Saidén has remained at the head of the Secretariat of Public Security, while he has been linked through his gas stations to the Port of Progreso, where vessels flying the flags of Panama, the Marshall Islands, or Singapore have arrived—the preferred flags for international hydrocarbon trafficking.
The Ships and the Unmovable Saidén
Following a review of the reports of arrivals and departures at the Port of Progreso, Grupo Sol Corporativo detected that from 2023 to the present, the arrival of “oil tankers” has skyrocketed. Although several bear the label of Petróleos Mexicanos, what is puzzling is that their points of origin indicate U.S. ports, particularly those transporting enormous quantities of hydraulic oil, two of the main clues that have led investigators toward fiscal huachicol in various investigations.
Beginning one year before Joaquín Díaz Mena took office, and while Saidén continued at the head of the SSP, where operations against huachicol were almost nonexistent, “petroleum fluids” began arriving in Yucatán at piers 7 and 9 of the Port of Progreso. This can be verified in the report held by Sol Yucatán, which details the arrival at Pier 9 of the Harrier Bay, a tanker carrying “petroleum fluids,” on February 27 at 9:52 p.m., with docking completed at 11:13 p.m. The vessel was flying the flag of Singapore.
One day later, the Asphalt Carrier arrived at the Port of Progreso, another tanker that docked at Pier 7 on February 28, 2023, at 11:20 a.m., with docking completed at 12:00 p.m. The vessel was also flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.
What draws attention is that the same Singaporean flag was detected in the seizure of the Challenge Procyon, in Tampico, Tamaulipas, where in 2025 the Federal Government reported the seizure of more than 10 million liters of illegal fuel, later identified as diesel, but reported by Customs as “lubricating oil additives,” a recurring pattern that has been replicated nationwide in various seizures of illegal fuel.
The above is important because since Saidén has remained in charge of public security in Yucatán, a large number of ships carrying diesel, oils, and lubricants have arrived at the Port of Progreso and have subsequently been transported by land, although their sporadic seizures have always been carried out by the National Guard.
In this regard, the occasional operations that resulted in large quantities of illegal fuel being seized in municipalities such as Umán, Mérida, and Progreso can be recalled. Properties used as clandestine huachicol warehouses were secured, undoubtedly demonstrating that Yucatán has become one of the main storage sites for illegal fuel, both because of the “security” allegedly provided by Saidén Ojeda and because of the large quantity of “lubricating oil” entering through the Port of Progreso.
Grupo Sol Corporativo retains the arrival and departure reports from the Port of Progreso for recent years, which show that in May 2024 alone, there were a total of nine vessel arrivals carrying fuel, some identified as ecological diesel and local fuel, apparently for Pemex and the Maya Train.
In July 2025, seven oil tankers carrying both gasoline and diesel were detected arriving at the Port of Progreso; in August of the same year, at least six vessels were reported to have arrived at Pier 7; while in February 2026, there were six arrivals in that month alone, with vessels identified with the Pemex designation; likewise, in May 2026, seven vessels carrying gasoline and diesel were detected, apparently owned by Pemex.
However, what significantly changes the recent investigation and directly implicates the current Secretary of Public Security, due to the omission allegedly demonstrated at the state level regarding the storage of illegal fuel in Yucatán, is the excessive quantity of “hydraulic oil” that passes through the Port of Progreso year after year, since this product, together with lubricants, naphtha, solvents, and additives, is among those most commonly used to disguise illegal fuel and facilitate the crime of fiscal huachicol.
Between April 2024 and March 2025 alone, buyers worldwide imported 1,393 shipments of hydraulic lubricating oil, whose port code is HSN 2710. The three main importing countries of hydraulic lubricating oil were Vietnam, Ukraine, and Mexico, while the leading exporters were the United States, Germany, and Spain.
In addition, Sol Yucatán detected that a large number of international shipments involving various types of oils arrived at the Port of Progreso in recent years, most of them on tankers originating from the United States.
Following a review of international platforms, from 2023 to 2026, four arrivals of base oil were detected in Progreso, used in crude oil refining processes; 83 vessels carrying lubricant preparations, including specialty greases, cutting oils, and hydraulic fluids; and four arrivals of ships carrying additives prepared for lubricating oils containing petroleum oils or oils of bituminous mineral origin.
The Port of Progreso was also included among the 157 nationwide operations involving cutting lubricants, in addition to 11 arrivals carrying anti-corrosion lubricants during the past year.
The above data were obtained through international hydrocarbon import measurement platforms and undoubtedly coincide with the high level of huachicol detected in Yucatán, evidenced this same year by the raids in January in Seyé and a few days ago in Umán-Tebec, where thousands of liters of illegal fuel were found in containers.
In light of the above, the only question that arises for Saidén Ojeda is what the more than 6 billion pesos in annual resources for the SSP are being used for, along with the more than 7,000 surveillance cameras distributed throughout the state and the hundreds of patrol vehicles provided year after year with federal funds, now even for municipalities, if in the end the transfer of illegal fuel coexists daily with Yucatecan families while millions of pesos are obtained through tax evasion by his fellow gas station operators through fiscal huachicol.
Source: laopiniondemexico
