A Canadian court approves the extradition of a former Pemex security official

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Canadian court has allowed the extradition of the security chief of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the latest government company facing operation for his alleged ties to networks dedicated to fuel theft.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, granted the Mexican government the extradition of General Eduardo Leon Trauvitz, who was deputy director of strategic safeguards at Pemex during former President Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year term (2012-2012). Sunday 2018, a federal agent who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to testify to The Associated Press said.

Leon Trauvitz has 30 days to appeal the extradition decision.

The former official, who was also responsible for the security of the country's gasoline pipelines, was arrested in December 2021 in Canada at the request of the Mexican Attorney General's Office, which requested him because of his potential responsibility for organized crime in the matter. Hydrocarbons area and illegal theft of hydrocarbons.

For Leon Trauvitz, who requested a military license in 2010 to be Peña Nieto's security chief when he was governor of the state of Mexico, local authorities opened an operation in 2019 for his possible connection to people committed to stealing fuel in Pemex distribution networks.

In recent years, the theft of hydrocarbons, especially oil, has become widespread in Mexico.

Since the beginning of his six-year term, in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has stepped up the fight against the millionaire business of fuel theft and deployed thousands of soldiers to guard pipelines.