The CIA has been involved in deadly operations targeting cartel members in Mexico, according to a new report.
CNN detailed that the campaign is being led by the agency's Ground Branch and seeks to dismantle cartel networks, not only by removing leaders but also identifying vulnerabilities. It has been going on since last year, with operatives inside the country directly taking part in deadly attacks. Most of them have been directed at mid-level members.
"The lethality of their operations has been seriously ramped up," a person briefed on the operations told the outlet. "It's a significant expansion of the kind of thing the CIA has been willing to do inside Mexico."
The CIA reacted to the report, calling it "false and salacious," claiming that "serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk."
However, CNN said that the CIA's involvement in operations goes beyond those known publicly, including information sharing in the one where Mexican forces killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," the longtime leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion.
A sign of the involvement could be seen last month, when two CIA operatives were killed in a car crash in the state of Chihuahua. They had taken part in a raid on a meth lab along with two other CIA operatives and led by the director of Chihuahua's State Investigation Agency.
The development generated controversy in the country. President Claudia Sheinbaum said the federal government was not aware of the operation, which is against the law.
Sheinbaum said that governors who want to collaborate with U.S. security agencies, or agencies from any other country, must follow the Constitution and Mexico's National Security Law. "They must comply with the law, no matter what, because sovereignty is not negotiable," she said during her morning news conference.
The Chihuahua case remains murky. Chihuahua Attorney General César Jáuregui initially said the Americans died while returning from an operation to destroy drug labs in rugged mountain territory. He later said they were U.S. Embassy instructors involved in training work and were not part of the lab raid itself. AP reported that Mexican officials have offered conflicting accounts of whether federal authorities knew about the U.S. role.
A State Department spokesperson said U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson, a former CIA paramilitary officer, "coordinates U.S. collaboration with Mexican authorities in this joint effort."
"The United States and Mexico continue to take decisive bilateral action to disrupt and dismantle the transnational cartels that threaten communities on both sides of the border," the spokesman added.
Originally published on IBTimes
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