In 2009, the U.S. Justice Department reported that some U.S. refineries had bought millions of dollars' worth of oil stolen from Mexican government pipelines. Criminals, especially drug gangs, tap remote pipelines and sometimes build their own pipelines to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of oil each year. One oil executive has been charged and has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. The U.S. Homeland Security Department will return $2.4 million to Mexico's tax administration—the first money seized during a binational investigation into smuggled oil that authorities expect to lead to more arrests and seizures. In 2010 the former president of Houston-based Trammo Petroleum was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $10,000 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to receive stolen goods.