Reported by SAM COOPER

(Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.thebureau.news/p/us-bribery-indictment-points-to-mexican)

A new U.S. indictment accuses two Mexican nationals doing business in Texas of bribing officials at Mexico’s state energy company Pemex — a scheme that appears to be just one piece of a vast conspiracy outlined in U.S. sanctions filings in May, pointing to cartel-linked operations that have penetrated the global energy sector and are tied to terror-designated networks importing Chinese chemical precursors to flood North America with fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other narcotics.

Unsealed in the Southern District of Texas in August 2025, the charges allege that between 2019 and 2021, Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez and Mario Alberto Avila Lizarraga paid $150,000 in cash and provided luxury goods to officials at Pemex and its exploration arm, PEP, to infiltrate the company’s auditing branch. 

While not explicitly alleged in the filings, The Bureau’s analysis suggests the bribes likely enabled oil companies and traders acting as fronts for cartels — including the Jalisco New Generation, Sinaloa, or Gulf networks — to steal crude oil from Mexico, process it through U.S. refineries, and sell it worldwide.

The 21-page indictment — along with numerous earlier filings related to U.S. Treasury, FinCEN, Homeland Security, and DEA investigations — points to the cartels’ deeply insidious corporate infiltration, which has allowed them to function as a kind of shadow state in Mexico and to embed themselves across many countries worldwide, particularly in jurisdictions where law enforcement is weak or compromised.

Court records show that Rovirosa was no stranger to high-level U.S. agencies: in March 2023, he filed a petition in Washington, D.C., against the Department of Homeland Security and Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking action on an immigration matter involving the Immigrant Investor Program Office — before abruptly dropping the case six weeks later.