The criminal journey of Fernando Farías Laguna is close to coming to an end. The rear admiral, considered one of the central figures in the corruption scheme involving fuel smuggling that touches the Secretariat of the Navy, is already in the hands of Mexican authorities. Farías Laguna is being transported on a military plane from Argentina, where he was captured in April, and is expected to land in Mexican territory in the coming hours.
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Farías Laguna’s departure from Argentina’s Ezeiza airport was made possible because the Mexican Government withdrew its extradition process, a route that would have taken months or even years until the accused in the corruption network was tried in his country. By withdrawing the diplomatic claim, Javier Milei’s Government agreed to expel the naval officer, who had entered Argentine territory irregularly with a Guatemalan passport.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has announced the repatriation of the ex-military officer. “[the FGR] is carrying out the transfer, from Argentina to Mexico, of Fernando “N”, a former public servant possibly related to a complex criminal network dedicated to smuggling, dispersal, and distribution of fuel,” the agency reported on social media. The Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) assured through the same channel that this action shows the corporation’s commitment to fighting corruption. “The actions of individuals under investigation do not represent the women and men who make up the Navy,” the Navy states.
In the corruption scheme that has shaken Claudia Sheinbaum’s Government, 15 people have already been arrested. Farías Laguna will join his brother, Vice Admiral Manuel Roberto, in prison awaiting their judicial process for leading the network uncovered when authorities found a ship that arrived at the port of Tampico (Tamaulipas) with more than 10 million liters of smuggled diesel in June 2025.
The brothers — allegedly protected by their uncle, then Secretary of the Navy, José Rafael Ojeda Durán — defrauded millions of pesos from the institution’s offices in charge of customs surveillance, using their influence to introduce fuel without paying taxes to the country, according to the investigation. The rear admiral had been on the run since October, when he failed to appear to testify at the Criminal Justice Center in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico. He escaped from Mexico to Florida, United States, with an Interpol red notice on his head. Finally, Argentine authorities arrested him in Buenos Aires, where he arrived from Colombia with a false Guatemalan passport.
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The legal teams of both brothers, in Mexico and Argentina, had insisted through statements that there was no legal record that extradition had been granted nor that the rear admiral’s transfer to Mexico was imminent. The extradition trial was scheduled for August 27, but the expulsion mechanism advanced his departure from the country.
The deportation coincided with the visit to Argentina of Sheinbaum’s Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch. The security policy strategist was in Buenos Aires for the DEA International Drug Control Conference.
Epigmenio Mendieta, the lawyer leading the naval officer’s defense in Mexico, visited the rear admiral this Tuesday in the Argentine prison with members of his legal team. “Any eventual transfer of Fernando Farías to Mexico must be carried out through the appropriate legal channels and according to the determinations of the competent Argentine authorities,” he stated. Mendieta had devised a strategy for an asylum request in Argentina while managing the request for the brothers to be tried by military justice, as they continued to receive their Navy salaries. With the transfer to Mexico, his clients face sentences of between 20 and 40 years in prison amid the Government’s battle to combat the huge fiscal hole left by fuel smuggling in customs.
