Miss Universe owner linked to fuel smuggling ring in Mexico

Two fuel smuggling cases have come to light in Mexico in recent months. One network was commanded by high-ranking military officers, the Farías Laguna brothers, nephews of the Secretary of the Navy during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024). The other had among its leaders Raúl Rocha, businessman and owner of the Miss Universe pageant, along with politicians and public officials.

Both conspiracies may be closer than they appear. According to investigations into the two schemes, to which the Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS has had access, both criminal organizations used the customs offices of Tampico and Altamira in the State of Tamaulipas at the same time.

In the most recent case, the network was allegedly financed by Rocha and led by Jacobo Reyes, alias “Yaicob,” Jorge Enrique Alberts, alias “Yoryi,” and Daniel Roldán Morales, alias “El Inge.”

Around a web of companies in the sector that were mainly dedicated to importing smuggled fuel and weapons, supported by an alleged Army captain and several agents of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).

The investigation against them began in December 2024 and is based, among other evidence, on countless intercepted telephone conversations in which the defendants spoke openly about their criminal business.

On January 13, 2025, Jacobo Reyes León, alias “Yaicob,” main head of the Miss Universe owner’s network, speaks on the phone with Daniel Roldán Morales, “El Inge,” his hands on the ground.

“El Inge” asks for help with an issue. It turns out there is a ship at the Altamira customs office, waiting to unload smuggled fuel.

“El Inge” explains that “according to what they had already arranged” to unload the cargo, but that the ship has been outside the port for three days, and the arrangement has fallen apart. The ship in question, whose name does not appear in the investigation, carries 22 million liters of fuel.

Yaicob then makes a confession to “El Inge”: “The admiral or vice admiral of the Integral Port Administration” is a cousin of a certain Roberto Durán, about whom he gives no further information. “El Inge” then asks Reyes to intercede for him with Durán. “No, don’t mess with me, I don’t get along with that guy,” Reyes replies, justifying that he doesn’t get along with him. The conversation between Yaicob and “El Inge” continues. Yaicob feels they are being left stranded so that “Interpol will come after them,” that in Altamira, “there is no arrangement that isn’t through Roberto,” and that this person “isn’t interested in letting any ship enter.”

There are no references to any high-ranking military officer named Roberto Durán in the port of Altamira, but that port was under the control of one of those involved in the scheme of the Secretary of the Navy: frigate captain Fernando Ernesto Magaña Gutiérrez. According to the investigation, Magaña is one of the 11 people identified as accomplices within the network of brothers Manuel Roberto and Fernando Farías Laguna, nephews of Rafael Ojeda Durán, Secretary of the Navy under López Obrador. Unlike the scheme involving Raúl Rocha, the military operated with martial precision, and intelligence information, financial analysis, and a repentant informant were necessary to dismantle it.

That same January 13, Yaicob contacts “El Inge” again. Finally, he has called Durán to intercede for his collaborator’s ship, but has not obtained the expected result. “Roberto said they’re not going to let it unload, that they’re not going to unload it,” he states.

“El Inge” insists, asks him to tell Durán to “give him a price.” Meanwhile, the people with whom “El Inge” had the arrangement to unload have sent him “an email in English,” giving him a position for the ship to dock in Altamira. But “El Inge” doesn’t trust it. Yaicob warns him not to do it, “that they’re going to screw him over,” and that he will speak with the Integral Port Administration to let them anchor at a point in Tampico, which he apparently sometimes uses for matters related to one of his properties in Querétaro, La Espuela, where they store smuggled fuel.

But the management apparently doesn’t work either. Half an hour later, Reyes calls him again. He tells him it’s better to take the ship to international waters, “because if not, the Navy is going to come after them and they’re going to seize it,” and “he warns that an envoy from Roberto is going there and is going to steal it.” Next, he tells him that he has already spoken with Rocha, the owner of Miss Universe, to explain how he managed to smuggle through Altamira a previous shipment that had a similar problem. Later that same day, they talk about the issue again. It seems that “El Inge” has found a solution through a third person, but the jargon they use prevents understanding the outcome.

Altamira and Tampico, along with the customs offices of Guaymas (Sonora) and Ensenada (Baja California), were the central ports of the criminal conspiracy of the Farías Laguna brothers.

This operated, at least, since June 2023, and united sailors, public officials, and businessmen to smuggle millions of liters of gasoline within the country.

The Farías Laguna brothers allegedly used their influence within the institution to decide the appointments of sailors so that people they trusted ended up in key customs positions to operate their fuel smuggling network.

The Farías Laguna scheme used the port of Altamira from June 2023 until March 2024. Then, for some reason, they moved to neighboring Tampico. At the time when “El Inge” tried to unload his ship in Altamira, the sailors’ scheme was working hard. In December 2024, for example, the Farías brothers sent at least four ships to Tampico, twice the MTM Dublin and two more the MTM Hamburg, which carried a total of 48 million liters of fuel, transported to Mexico under a false tariff fraction, to thus save on taxes. In January of this year, they sent six more ships to Tampico, with 82 million liters.