The job title is a mouthful: director of procedures and legal affairs at the Matamoros Customs Office. Carlos Eugenio Benítez Orta held it until 2022. He is now in El Altiplano prison in Mexico, after an arrest in Texas on charges of helping smuggle illegal fuel across the border.
The woman who took over the post is Analee de Jesús Juraidini Silva. According to Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), she has worked in key positions at the same office since 2019.
Her brother is Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva. The U.S. Treasury Department named him one of the most important financial operators of organized crime, and on June 30 its Office of Foreign Assets Control listed him along with several shipping companies he managed. MCCI says he moved millions of liters of stolen fuel for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) through the Matamoros customs house where his sister works.
How did it work? Fuel from the United States was declared as lubricant, and that kept taxes off the books. The CJNG came out ahead. MCCI ties the scheme to the post Benítez Orta once filled.
Years ago, the group says, people called it an open secret. Today MCCI calls it proven that the cartel has infiltrated customs in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and it points to the sister as the proof.
She keeps working. Official documents show her continuing at the office, which MCCI describes as the national epicenter of fuel smuggling. The investigation does not say she has been charged.
