Mexican Drug Gangs Dipping Into Oil

HOUSTON -- Smuggling billions of dollars worth of narcotics across the Rio Grande apparently isn't enough for Mexican cartels. In recent years, they have expanded their activities in kidnapping, extortion, people smuggling and, of all things, petroleum siphoning.

The Mexican state-owned oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, estimates some $720 million worth of oil products were stolen from it in 2008, slightly higher than 2007. The robberies have sapped the oil behemoth--the second-largest exporter to the U.S.--for years. But the number of discovered clandestine taps into national pipelines has steadily climbed in recent years, adding to frustrations over falling production at its prize field Cantarell.