Mexico’s Attorney General Arrests Ernesto Ruffo, Former PAN Governor of BC, for Organized Crime and Fuel Smuggling

ByGustavo Castillo

This article by Gustavo Castillo originally appeared in the July 16, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) reported that it arrested former Baja California governor Ernesto Ruffo Appel for organized crime and fuel smuggling, as majority shareholder of the company Ingemar, related to the illegal smuggling of fuel from the United States to Mexico, the storage of more than 15 million liters of hydrocarbons.

Through its account on X, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office indicated that his apprehension is the “result of a high-complexity investigation related to large fuel smuggling operations.”

Those operations were carried out by Ingemar, “a company founded by the former governor of Baja California, the #FGR requested and obtained an arrest warrant for the possible commission of the crimes of organized crime and smuggling.”

The arrest warrant was executed in Ensenada, Baja California, by elements of the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), the FGR indicated.

Ernesto Ruffo Appel was the first governor in Mexico’s history from a party in opposition to the PRI. A militant of the National Action Party (PAN), he governed the state of Baja California from 1989 to 1995.