MATAMOROS — The numbers in this story are small. Two siblings. One customs post.
Millions of liters of stolen fuel. A single prison cell.
Analee de Jesús Juraidini Silva is the sister of Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva. The U.S. Treasury Department designated him a major financial operator for organized crime. His specialty: moving stolen fuel for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known as CJNG.
Millions of liters of it. She works at the Matamoros Customs Office.
She has held key positions there since 2019. One of those jobs is director of procedures and legal affairs. That exact job was held by Carlos Eugenio Benítez Orta until 2022.
He is now in El Altiplano prison in Mexico. He was arrested in Texas on charges of helping smuggle illegal fuel across the border. Benítez Orta left the post.
Analee de Jesús Juraidini took it. The investigation by Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, known as MCCI, connects the dots.
The same customs post. The same border crossing. The same type of criminal scheme.
Here is how the operation worked, according to MCCI. Fuel was declared as lubricant at the border.
That evaded taxes. The CJNG benefited. The scheme used the customs post that Benítez Orta once held and that Juraidini Silva now holds.
Years ago, MCCI says, it was an open secret. Today the evidence is more concrete. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has infiltrated the customs office in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The case of Analee de Jesús Juraidini Silva is the proof MCCI presents. One family holds both sides of this equation.
One brother sanctioned as a cartel financial operator. One sister in the customs post that allegedly enabled the fuel theft. The same family.
The same border. The same fuel.
Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva was named by the U.S. Treasury. His sister remains on the job. MCCI’s investigation does not say whether she has been charged with any crime.
It does not say she is under investigation. It says she holds the position. The numbers tell a story of continuity. 2019: she starts at customs. 2022: Benítez Orta leaves the director post, arrested.
She takes it. The scheme, MCCI argues, did not stop.
It kept running. The same people. The same methods.
The same fuel crossing the same border. Millions of liters of stolen fuel.
One sanctioned operator. One customs official. One prison cell holding Benítez Orta.
One sister still working. The MCCI investigation does not offer estimates of how much fuel was stolen or how much money moved. It does not need to.
The pattern is the point. The Juraidini name appears on both ends of the pipeline.
Matamoros sits across from Brownsville, Texas. Fuel flows north. So does money.
The cartel gets its product across. The customs office, MCCI says, is where the system was greased.
Benítez Orta is in El Altiplano. That is the same high-security prison that once held Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. It is a hard place to leave.
His arrest in Texas on smuggling charges did not end the operation. MCCI says the evidence shows the cartel is still inside the customs house. Analee de Jesús Juraidini Silva is the evidence.
