The bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros moves thousands of cars and trucks every day. Some of the fuel on those trucks is legal. A lot of it is not. A family with ties on both sides of that bridge has been linked to those criminal networks for years.
El Tejano has learned that Jesus Juraidini of Brownsville is a relative of the man Treasury froze on June 30, 2026. His name is Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva. He is a Matamoros accountant. Treasury says he ran the money side of CJNG. That is the Jalisco cartel.
Jesus Juraidini said in federal court he was the Gulf Cartel's main extortion man in the Rio Grande Valley. He paid $2.5 million in cartel cash for homes and buildings across Hidalgo County. A federal judge gave him three years of probation in November 2023. He did not go to prison.
His relative in Matamoros was building a fuel theft empire. For a rival cartel. On June 30, 2026, the U.S. froze every company he ran. Six firms in Matamoros. One shell company in London named Cucumber Sweet Waves.
Two cartels. One family. One bridge.
That is not the story Treasury told. This is the story behind it.
What the Government Knew and When
Six years before the June 30 sanctions, the FBI was already watching one of the men named that day.
In early 2020, a Mexican trucking firm called Jomadi Logistics and Cargo signed a deal with Venezuela. Jomadi would supply high-octane gasoline to Venezuela. In exchange for five million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil. Venezuela needed gas. Its leader, Nicolas Maduro, was blocked by U.S. sanctions. The deal was set up to dodge those sanctions.
By May 2020, a news report said the FBI and Treasury were looking at Jomadi and its boss, J. Refugio Ruiz Villagomez. They were looking at him for helping Maduro break U.S. law.
No charges. No freeze. No action.
Jomadi kept moving fuel.
By 2026, Jomadi had a new client. Same trucks. Same fake paperwork. Same border. But now the fuel was moving for CJNG. The U.S. called CJNG a terrorist group in February 2025.
The June 30 action left one question open. Why did it take six years to freeze a man and a company the FBI had already looked at?
How the Scheme Works
The fuel theft scheme in this case has a name. Huachicol fiscal. Fiscal fuel theft.
The whole scheme is a tax lie.
Mexico charges a fuel tax called IEPS on every liter of gas sold there. Cartel traders found a way to skip it.
Here is how.
Fuel traders in the United States buy gas and diesel at legal export spots. They load it on trucks, train cars, and ships. They drive it toward Mexico. At the border, they give agents fake papers. The papers say the load is "waste oil" or some other item that does not need permits. The fuel gets in. The tax never gets paid. The cartel keeps the tax money. The gas ends up at cartel-run stations.
The cash flows back north. Through trucking firms, cash exchanges, real estate deals, and shell companies.
Reports say between one quarter and one third of all gas sold in Mexico comes from fraud like this. Mexico loses $11 billion a year in taxes to it.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this is now the second biggest way cartels make money. Right behind drugs.
The Matamoros Money Machine
Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva is 41 years old. He was born in Tamaulipas. He is an accountant. The U.S. says he built the money system for CJNG's fuel ring.
His companies had different jobs.
Centro Cambiario La Peseta opened in Matamoros in 2012. It is a cash exchange. A cash exchange inside a cartel network does one thing: it makes dirty money look like clean business income.
OF Transportes ran a white truck fleet. Ogui Fletes ran a blue freight line. Its trucks roll through Matamoros with the company name on the door.
OJ Living Trust, RK Real King, and Soma Transporte y Servicios handled real estate and money services.
All six are in Matamoros. All six are now frozen.
The seventh company was in London.
Cucumber Sweet Waves Ltd was set up in London on September 2, 2024. The address: 27 Old Gloucester Street. Juraidini was named its director on January 8, 2025. A UK firm checked his ID in January 2026. The company filed papers that same month saying it did no business. A cartel accountant. A London shell company. Filed as dormant. Then frozen on June 30, 2026.
The Brownsville Side
Jesus Juraidini pleaded guilty in federal court in McAllen on March 22, 2021.
Court records show the scheme ran from January 2010 through November 2018. He paid more than $2.5 million in cash to a Mission builder named Delfino Gaona. Gaona bought and built at least six homes and shops in Hidalgo County with that cash. He broke the cash into smaller amounts. That way no report had to be filed.
A lawyer for a co-defendant said in open court that Jesus Juraidini told the FBI he was the Gulf Cartel's main extortion man. He also washed millions for them. The government did not push back.
Jesus Juraidini helped the FBI. He agreed to pay back $2,519,000. He gave up 10 properties in Hidalgo County.
The FBI, DEA, Texas DPS, the Hidalgo County Sheriff, and police in McAllen and Pharr all worked it.
On November 9, 2023, Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane sentenced Jesus Juraidini to three years of probation.
He did not go to prison.
$7 Billion. Brownsville Named First.
After a May 2025 alert, banks filed 160 reports in one year. All tied to CJNG's fuel ring. Those reports covered $7 billion in suspect cash. Texas was the top state. Florida was second.
In Texas, the reports were heavy in border cities. Brownsville was listed first. Then Mission. Then Eagle Pass. Then McAllen. Most of the businesses flagged were in oil, gas, and trucking.
The South Texas Homeland Security Task Force led the case. The DEA, FBI, HSI, the IRS, and Border Patrol all worked it.
CJNG's top boss died in February 2026. The money machine did not stop. It kept running. It does not need any one boss. It runs on money men and truck firms. On cash shops and fake companies. On false papers and border crossings.
Two cartels. One family. Six years of watching Jomadi. One bridge.
The FinCEN report named Brownsville first.
El Tejano will continue to follow this story.
