Crusade against gasoline theft causes chaos in Mexico

Gasoline theft cost Mexico $3 billion last year and the new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has wasted no time in mounting a massive show of force agains the crime.

The Armed Forces have seized installations of state oil company Pemex and pipelines closed with the consequence of severe shortages of fuel, not to mention panic buying, in a large part of the country.

Critics of the president claim he should have taken measures that would have been less specular but more effective.