After the U.S. government’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) located three drug cartels in Hidalgo, Governor Julio Menchaca Salazar said that “you can’t hide the truth” regarding organized crime.
However, he questioned whether the DEA has a political motive in its handling of security data and believed that the Donald Trump administration should be more concerned about what is happening in his country, as it is the world’s leading consumer of narcotics, “and not try to teach our country any lessons.”
In its 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA), the DEA reports that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)—with the largest territorial dominance—the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), and the Northeast Cartel (CDN)—one of the offshoots of Los Zetas—operate in the state.
It also warns that these criminal groups have financed themselves through gasoline theft, and that Hidalgo has been leading the illegal extraction of fuel through clandestine taps throughout Mexico since 2018.
“What we have been doing together with the government of the Republic, the Eighteenth Military Zone, the National Guard, the Attorney General’s Office, the state Public Security, and the Attorney General’s Office is a frontal fight against crime.
“We don’t work to avoid data, statistics, or figures; hundreds of women and men are working to combat crime,” the president stated, adding that Hidalgo is one of the five safest states and that there is confidence in the business sector to invest.
When asked why, given that his security cabinet denied it, the presence of cartels was acknowledged until a foreign institution presented it in a report, Menchaca Salazar responded:
“Well, they hadn’t asked me. It’s very delicate to be mentioning a situation that also involves national security, and what we have made public over time are the results achieved by the security departments.” “A highly dangerous individual was recently arrested, and this has been happening throughout this administration,” the president stated in an interview after inaugurating the 18th National Conference of Mexican Notaries in Pachuca.
“Remember that all Pemex pipelines run through the state, in more than 20 municipalities. In some, more than in others, fuel theft has occurred over time. And what we have insisted on a lot—you are witnesses to this—is raising awareness among those who are being, let’s say, co-opted by this resource, whose personal safety is at risk.” Not only is it an attack on the nation’s heritage, but it also puts communities at risk, it puts those who dedicate themselves to it at risk, and emphasis is being placed on programs that provide young people with alternatives,” he added when asked about the regions where the cartels operate.
He also insisted on requesting the support of families, because “that easy money they can get by doing snooping or anything related to crime is detrimental to their lives and their safety.”
“Anything that is generating, anyone who is generating violence, we don’t care what name they have, they are all being inhibited; the force of the State is being exercised. Whether they belong to this or that (organization) or not at all, that is a secondary or statistical question,” the Morena member added, although he mentioned that they will review the data provided by the DEA in the 2025 NDTA—which shows the territorial mapping of cartel operations in the country’s states and their criminal activities, from a general perspective—and that he will also request clarification from his Security Cabinet, chaired by Secretary of Government Guillermo Olivares Reyna.
The governor also asked the press to stop disseminating news related to organized crime: “We are working (…) So, one of the fundamental movements is, let’s say, the ethics that allow the media to convey what is best for society, not instill fear.”
After a series of similar questions, including the lack of prior recognition of the presence of cartels after high-impact events such as homicides, Menchaca Salazar stated that “just because the DEA says so” doesn’t mean it’s true; he also considered the US agency “an area that has its own interests.”
“Let’s see, how many spectacular arrests? The biggest consumer of narcotics is the United States. Someone has to distribute it, someone has to be involved in that money laundering, in that arms and drug trafficking. So, I think US agencies should start by worrying about what’s happening in their country, which is the biggest consumer of narcotics worldwide, and not pretend to be lecturing our country.”
“The data is useful, the president (Claudia Sheinbaum) has insisted. Collaboration, yes. “Subordination, no,” he concluded.
The former senator acknowledged that the main threat to the state’s security is fuel theft, and that “through this activity, other criminal activities are generated: extortion, when they are being squeezed a lot and the pipelines are being closed… tunnels like the ones that have been found, for example, have never been found: houses connected to the main pipelines.
“So, criminals are looking for other ways to attack society: through robberies, assaults, and that’s what we are doing, with great persistence and also with great courage,” he maintained.
The NDTA 2025 mentions that gasoline theft and oil smuggling on the black market “are the primary means by which cartels finance their networks,” and estimates that Mexico “loses tens of billions of dollars annually in tax revenue, while costing U.S. oil and gas companies billions of dollars annually due to the decline in oil imports and exports during this same period.”
Since 2018, Hidalgo has been the state with the most illegal taps nationwide, through which huachicolero groups extract gasoline, diesel, gas, petrochemicals, and even jet fuel.
Source: proceso
