The government of Mexico has been giving billions of dollars worth of oil to Cuba through a shell company and programs, in what the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, calls a humanitarian effort in response to the ongoing sanctions on the Caribbean Island by the U.S. Government. The move by Sheinbaum comes as Mexico continues to deal with poor oil production, and some of her top political allies are under investigation in both Mexico and the United States for fuel smuggling on behalf of drug cartels.
A recent report by the NGO Mexicanos Contra La Corrupcion e Impunidad (MCCI) revealed that under Sheinbaum’s administration, the fuel shipments to Cuba have more than tripled in comparison to other years. The report points to more than $3billion in fuel having been sent from May to August 2025. According to the report, in 2024, Mexico sent $600 million worth of fuel to Cuba, while from July to December 2023, it sent $400 million in fuel.
Additionally, the report points to Mexico’s government using a ship that had been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department. According to MCCI, on August 20, Sandino sailed from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and arrived in Cuba seven days later. Since 2019, the U.S. Treasury has listed the ship Sandino as sanctioned in relation to Venezuela moving oil to Cuba. The move opens Mexico not only to additional tensions with the Trump administration but also to possible sanctions.
While Mexico’s government claims to have sold the fuel to Cuba, information released by MCCI contradicts the official version, revealing that Mexico has given the fuel to Cuba in what Sheinbaum calls humanitarian help.
Mexico has been moving the fuel through a private company called Gasolinas Bienestar S.A. de C.V., which, according to MCCI, was established solely for the purpose of selling fuel to Cuba. Gasolinas Bienestar acts as a shell company of sorts in order to move the fuel, which is produced by Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos, a government-owned oil company. MCCI claims that since the creation of Gasolinas Bienestar, the company has only reported losses, which match the amount of oil shipped to Cuba.
Sheinbaum has publicly claimed that the fuel sent to Cuba is an overproduction. Pemex has historically been underproducing and is constantly importing oil and fuel products from the United States and other countries.
As Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Justice have been working on a series of fuel smuggling investigations in which Mexican drug cartels have been smuggling stolen Mexican oil and fuel into the U.S. as a way to hide their origins. Top political figures within Mexico’s ruling party have previously been accused by rivals and various news outlets in that country of having used proceeds from those fuel smuggling operations to finance prior political campaigns.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded the Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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