The Greenfield Police Department in Monterey County is leading the operation. The department said it is part of a statewide theft ring in which people stole fuel from gas stations. Greenfield's police chief said two of his officers first discovered what was going on by chance. "We were lucky enough to have some officers that were on point and made an arrest during one of the several fuel thefts here in Greenfield, and that opened the box to this larger investigation,"
The U.S. Treasury Department took a swipe at the Mexican prison system on Wednesday, disguised as a sanctions announcement against a criminal leader one of many it reports each year. The Treasury explained that it has decided to sanction Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, alias El Marro, head of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel (CSRL), for his industrial-scale fuel theft operation in the state of Guanajuato, in central Mexico.