The Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG) partnered with the Jensen family, originally from Utah, to traffic fuel oil from Mexico to the US through their oil companies, according to US prosecutors.
According to the expanded indictment, filed yesterday against both James and Maxwell Jensen, father and son, “knowingly conspired and agreed together to provide material support and resources, i.e., US money to the CJNG, which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization on February 20, 2025”.
The Jensens, according to investigations, were involved in the business since at least May 2022, and now both face five charges related to money laundering, fuel trafficking and conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Authorities anticipate that, if found guilty, they could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of US$300 million, resources that they allegedly laundered and from which they benefited.
Both are scheduled to be arraigned and arraigned on these charges on May 29 in the Southern District Court of Texas in Brownsville.
The Jensen family, along with Kelly Anne, wife, and Zachary, another son, are accused of smuggling $300 million worth of Mexican crude oil through three companies that purchased the stolen oil from criminal organizations in Mexico. They were arrested in late April in Utah by FBI agents.
According to the authorities, they smuggled the crude oil to the US by falsifying the invoices of the shipment, and thus managed to launder at least $47 million dollars in favor of, it is now known, organizations such as the CJNG.
The file filed in the Southern District Court of Texas indicates that the couple trafficked at least 2,881 shipments of crude oil distributed by Mexican criminal groups between May 2022 and March 2025, carrying out large-scale operations that were kept off the radar of the authorities on both sides of the Rio Grande. Through the firms Arroyo Terminals, LLC, Big Hog Energy, LLC, and Jentran, LLC, they established fruitful business relationships with irregular Mexican suppliers linked to organized crime.
“The crude oil was purchased from companies that operated solely through the authorization of Mexican criminal organizations,” the indictment states.
Once they managed to get the crude oil into U.S. territory, the Jensen family converted the illegal oil into clean money after selling it to their industrial clients as if it came from legal sources.
The funds generated from the sale of the illegal crude oil were deposited in bank accounts at Wells Fargo and Bank of America, controlled by the Jensen companies, and then transferred to the accounts of supposed Mexican suppliers, who in reality were intermediaries for the criminal organizations.
The US government has dozens of the Jensens’ properties linked to the illicit crude oil sales operations that are secured, including two bank accounts belonging to the family businesses and four marine tankers used to transport crude oil.
On April 29, Zachary and Maxwell pleaded not guilty to the charges and a tentative date of June 16 was set to begin jury selection for their trial; however, it is expected to be delayed because Maxwell has been indicted on a new charge of providing material support to the Jalisco cartel.