U.S. Senator Questions Major Tanker Operators in Expanding Cartel Fuel Smuggling Crackdown

Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer in Mexico City and Shariq Khan in New York Reuters December 19, 2025

Dec 19 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden has contacted seven maritime shipping companies as part of an inquiry into cartel-linked fuel smuggling between the United States and Mexico, asking the firms to explain their vetting procedures for ensuring their tankers aren’t used to transport illicit hydrocarbons, according to copies of the letters seen by Reuters.

The letters from Wyden, who is the most senior Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee, were dated Friday. They come as stolen crude and bootleg fuel have become the second-largest revenue source for Mexican cartels after drugs, according to the U.S. Treasury.

Narcos have done it by embedding themselves inside North America’s vast energy sector and mastering the logistics of moving petroleum products by truck, rail and most recently tankers. It’s an audacious display of ingenuity by Mexico’s cartels, which have enlisted a variety of legitimate oil industry players to help them procure and transport the products, some unwittingly, others actively participating, law enforcement sources say.

“I want to be sure both shipping companies and the U.S. government are doing everything in their power to shut off this revenue stream,” Wyden, the senior senator from Oregon, told Reuters by email. “These letters are the first step in my effort to learn more about how these criminal networks operate, and where existing controls are failing.”

Wyden’s letters referenced a Reuters investigation which pieced together how the alleged scheme works and how it exploits loopholes in the vast and complex U.S. energy sector, touching a host of entities including oil majors, shipping companies and government agencies.

The letters were sent to seven of the biggest players in the global oil tanker business: Torm, International Seaways, Norden, CMB.Tech, Frontline, Teekay and Scorpio. Wyden has requested detailed information by Jan. 10, 2026, about the due diligence each company conducts “to ensure its oil tankers are not utilized to transport illicit fuel,” the letter said.

None of the firms has been charged with wrongdoing.

Torm was the manager of two vessels that were allegedly used for oil smuggling earlier this year, according to the October 22 Reuters investigation, which cited documents and security sources.

CMB.Tech said it practices due diligence, follows know-your-customer standards and complies with all applicable regulations. The Belgium-based company said it would be responding to Wyden’s questions.

Norden confirmed receipt of Wyden’s letter and said its sea carriages are performed in compliance with applicable laws.

The other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding Wyden’s inquiry.

Mexican cartels have increasingly muscled their way into the multi-billion dollar trade of smuggling fuel from the United States to Mexico, the news agency found.

The scheme largely boils down to a lucrative tax dodge. Mexico slaps a levy known as IEPS on a wide variety of goods, including imported diesel and gasoline. Crooks evade the tax, charged by the liter and often costing upwards of 50% of the cargo’s value, by declaring the foreign fuel to be some other type of petroleum product that’s exempt from the duty. A single tanker load can save millions of dollars in taxes, a Reuters calculation based on the tax rate and volumes typically carried by these vessels showed.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent cartels, is the unquestioned leader in fuel and crude oil smuggling and the only cartel using tankers, according to Mexican and U.S. security sources.

Fuel smuggling has grown so fast that bootleg imports now account for as much as one-third of Mexico’s diesel and gasoline market, swiping profits from some of the biggest names in the oil industry, five current and former Mexican government sources told Reuters earlier this year. Illegal fuel entering the country is now valued at more than $20 billion a year, according to one of the people who helped Mexico’s treasury calculate the size of the illicit trade.

“The scope of these illicit fuel smuggling operations is staggering,” Wyden wrote in the letters. “Cracking down on this illicit industry is critical to blunt cartels’ ability to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, cocaine, and other deadly drugs in the United States, and the international shipping industry must play its part to end this lawless practice.”

https://gcaptain.com/u-s-senator-questions-major-tanker-operators-in-expanding-cartel-fuel-smuggling-crackdown/

Canada #86

German Spies Will Get Much More Dangerous as Merz Draws Up New Law Allowing Intelligence Services to Attack and Sabotage “Enemies of the State’

by Paul Serran Dec. 19, 2025

The return of the Stasi?

As the Euro-Globalist failing leaders try to whip their countries into an anti-Russia Frenzy, Germany is trying to come out of this process as the country with the largest military and – it appears – the meanest intelligence services.

In a move reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War, new legislation will allow spies from Germany’s foreign intelligence agency ‘to attack and sabotage enemies of the state’.

The Telegraph reported:

“Since its founding in 1956 in West Germany, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has only been permitted to gather and analyze intelligence. But a new law, drawn up by chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition, will give BND spies additional powers to launch cyber-attacks, carry out sabotage abroad and covertly enter the homes of enemies of the state.”

Spies would also be allowed to take down suspicious drones and launch operations to ‘weaken the enemy’s capabilities.’

“Spies will also be allowed to install spyware on computers belonging to enemy suspects and secretly enter their homes. When operating overseas, spies will be allowed to install tracking devices on enemy technology or weaponry – or destroy it altogether.”

“The new powers were revealed this week by Martin Jäger, the new president of the BND, as he joked: ‘It doesn’t mean we’re going to turn into James Bond, don’t worry’.

[…] Earlier this month, the German parliament also approved a new, voluntary military service scheme which will require young male Germans to take part in an army medical exam from next year. Young men can then choose whether to join the army if the exam declares them fit for service.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/german-spies-will-get-much-more-dangerous-as/

Secretary of State Rubio Confirms ENDING NGO ‘Foreign Aid Industrial Complex’

by Margaret Flavin Dec. 19, 2025 12:20 pm

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it very clear that the days of NGOs, an integral part of the ‘Foreign Aid Industrial Complex’, sending aid often in direct opposition to America’s priorities, are over.

Rubio told reporters, “Foreign aid should be used for the purpose of furthering the national interest. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about human rights. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about starvation. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about hunger. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about humanitarian need.”

“What it does mean, however, is that even foreign aid, which is NOT charity – it is an act of the US taxpayer.”

In July, Rubio signaled the changes when he announced that USAID would no longer send foreign assistance across the globe.

Rubio noted that USAID had, for decades, failed to ensure the programs it funded actually supported America’s interests.

The State Department took over foreign assistance programs beginning on July 1.

A State Department substack from July notes:

“Every public servant has an obligation to American citizens to ensure any programs they fund advance our nation’s interests. During the Trump Administration’s thorough review of thousands of programs, and over $715 billion in inflation-adjusted spending over the decades, it became apparent the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) fell well below this standard.”

“USAID had decades and a near-infinite taxpayer budget to advance American influence, promote economic development worldwide, and allow billions to stand on their own two feet.”

“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”

“On the global stage, the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate. For example, in 2023, sub-Saharan African nations voted with the United States only 29 percent of the time on essential resolutions at the UN despite receiving $165 billion in outlays since 1991. That’s the lowest rate in the world.”

“Over the same period, more than $89 billion invested in the Middle East and North Africa left the U.S. with lower favorability ratings than China in every nation but Morocco.”

“The agency’s expenditure of $9.3 billion in Gaza and the West Bank since 1991, whose beneficiaries included allies of Hamas, has produced grievances rather than gratitude towards the United States. The only ones living well were the executives of the countless NGOs, who often enjoyed five-star lifestyles funded by American taxpayers, while those they purported to help fell further behind.”

“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end.”

“Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/secretary-state-rubio-confirms-ending-ngo-foreign-aid/

Canada #86

Trump Suspends $40BN Tech Deal With UK Over Free Speech Crackdown

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news Saturday, Dec 20, 2025

The Trump administration has delivered a major blow to UK-US relations by suspending a massive $40 billion Tech Prosperity Deal, citing Britain’s aggressive censorship regime as a direct threat to American tech giants and their ability to operate freely.

This move underscores Trump’s zero-tolerance stance on foreign policies that undermine US interests, especially when they involve stifling free speech and handing advantages to global competitors like China.

The White House paused the tech prosperity deal amid concerns the UK government’s draconian Online Safety Act, which regulates online speech, will stifle American artificial intelligence companies, the Telegraph reports.

The law allows the British government to levy large fines on tech giants it deems have facilitated ‘hate speech’.

After the rise of artificial intelligence, companies like OpenAI or xAI can face huge fines – harming their growth and giving China an edge in the AI race.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the £31bn agreement has been suspended as the White House seeks to improve terms on a wider UK-US trade deal agreed in May.

On Dec 3, Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said the government planned to impose new restrictions on chatbots to ensure AI companies do not benefit from loopholes in the law.

“The perception is that Britain is way out there on attempting to police what is said online, and it’s caused real concern”, a source with knowledge of the decision to suspend the deal stated.

“Americans went into this deal thinking Britain were going to back off regulating American tech firms but realised it was going to restrict the speech of American chatbots,” the source added.

The deal, announced in September during Trump’s state visit to the UK, included pledges of £22bn from Microsoft and £5bn from Google to create an AI growth zone in north-east England, potentially generating £30bn in economic value and 5,000 jobs.

Leftist UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed it as “a generational stepchange in our relationship with the US,” while Trump described it as a path to “dominate” in AI and lead the technological revolution “side by side.”

Beyond censorship, Washington has raised issues with the UK’s digital services tax on US tech firms and food safety rules blocking certain agricultural exports, framing the pause as part of hard-nosed negotiations to eliminate trade barriers.

A British government source downplayed the suspension as “the usual bit of hardball negotiations by the Americans,” adding that US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick “is a tough guy. We understand that the Americans negotiate incredibly hard but we’ll stand our ground. They want what’s best for their country, we want what’s best for ours.”

Another source labeled it “part of the shape of the negotiations” with Washington.

This latest escalation highlights the ongoing free speech crisis in the UK, where authorities have ramped up arrests for online expression. As we reported earlier, the latest insane case has seen a man jailed for 18 months over two anti-immigration tweets viewed just 33 times combined—a stark example of the regime’s overreach.

The broader pattern is alarming: nearly 10,000 arrests in 2024 alone for “grossly offensive” social media posts, equating to 30 per day, while violent crimes like knife attacks and burglaries are sidelined.

More:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-suspends-40bn-tech-deal-uk-over-free-speech-crackdown