MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated on Monday that well-known overseas firms had engaged in what he described as gasoline smuggling and he named international vitality dealer Trafigura for example of the observe.

The feedback marked a brand new improvement in an online of corruption probes of among the world’s largest vitality merchants throughout a number of nations in Latin America.

“We’ve discovered that a few of these well-known overseas firms had been transporting contraband gasoline and Trafigura’s import allow has been suspended,” Lopez Obrador instructed an everyday information convention. He didn’t present particulars.

Contraband can consult with merchandise smuggled into Mexico or items introduced into the nation underneath false documentation. Lopez Obrador stated the legal professional normal’s workplace was trying into the problem.

Mexico’s vitality ministry final month stated 4 Trafigura gasoline import permits had been within the strategy of cancellation https://www.reuters.com/enterprise/vitality/mexicos-energy-ministry-suspends-several-trafigura-import-permits-2021-09-21 whereas one had expired.

Trafigura didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The corporate beforehand stated the suspensions weren’t legitimate and that it follows the legal guidelines and rules of the nations the place it operates.

Mexico can be probing Vitol https://www.reuters.com/enterprise/vitality/exclusive-mexico-probing-vitol-over-false-import-documents-tax-chief-2021-08-05, the world’s largest unbiased vitality dealer, over “irregularities” within the documenting of its refined oil merchandise getting into Mexico that might result in felony expenses for tax evasion.

Vitol has denied any wrongdoing, and beforehand stated the allegations dated again a few years and are associated to imports labeled by one other firm with which it labored.