MEXICO CITY — No floodlights illuminate the night sky when the citizens of Mexico’s Gotham need a hand. No hot line summons this super-cop from a hidden redoubt.
But Mexico does indeed have its own “Batman”: Omar García Harfuch, security czar in the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
He acquired the Batman moniker during his days as Mexico City’s crime-busting police chief under then-Mayor Sheinbaum. Like the stalwart Dark Knight, García Harfuch emits the vibe of a vigilant protector who compensates for a lack of superpowers with more cerebral skills — a mix of intelligence, resolve and moxie.
In his current post (official title: secretary of Security and Citizen Protection), García Harfuch is inevitably dispatched to hot spots from the northern border to the southern hinterlands — sites of assassinations, massacres, gang wars and other headline-grabbing incarnations of Mexican mayhem. The script never varies: He vows to snare the bad guys. Arrests follow.
Like his boss, Sheinbaum, the security chief disputes President Trump’s assertions that Mexico is “run by” cartels, though he doesn’t deny the widespread sway of organized crime.
“Yes, there is definitely a presence of criminal groups, but [Mexico] is not controlled by the cartels,” García Harfuch, 43, recently told the Mexican daily El Universal.
His stern, just-the-facts Joe Friday recitals of arrests, seizures, drug lab takedowns and other enforcement actions are signature moments at presidential news briefings. García Harfuch — always decked out in suit and tie — transmits an aura of competence, and his media-savvy advisors have burnished his image as an implacable foe of the cartels.
Supporters began calling him Batman, in English, when crime rates dropped precipitously in Mexico City during his tenure as police chief. Supporters even circulated online images of a modified Batman action figure, with “Harfuch” emblazoned on the chest.
While emphasizing intelligence-gathering and investigative diligence, he doesn’t shy from praising shoe-leather police work and citing traditional metrics of success. Since Sheinbaum took office Oct. 1, 2024, he says, authorities have arrested more than 37,000 suspects in “high-impact crimes,” seized more than 300 tons of illicit drugs and dismantled more than 600 drug labs.
Such statistics were rarely tossed about during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor. The ex-president favored a much-criticized “hugs not bullets” strategy — curtailing offensive operations against cartels and instead addressing poverty and other socioeconomic factors driving young people to join organized crime. Many Mexicans appear happy with the shift.
“Harfuch seems to me a good man who has good intentions, but, unfortunately, crime is so ingrained in Mexican society that it’s hard to get rid of it,” said Gregorio Flores, 57, a shop owner in Mexico City.
García Harfuch is the probably the most visible figure in the Mexican government apart from the president, and polls show him to be among the most popular — and a possible candidate to succeed Sheinbaum, who clearly trusts him explicitly from their time together in Mexico City government. Even rivals of Sheinbaum acknowledge his effectiveness.
Taking a pronounced stance against organized crime is hardly without risk in Mexico, where politicians, cops, journalists and anyone else who stands in the way of the mobs may wind up in the gangsters’ cross-hairs. García Harfuch is well aware of the stakes.
In 2020, while serving as the capital’s police chief, García Harfuch survived three gunshot wounds in a brazen attack as his SUV traveled along Mexico City’s elegant Paseo de la Reforma. Killed in the assault were two police bodyguards and a female street vendor who was a bystander. The commando-style strike utilizing multiple high-caliber armaments stunned one of the capital’s toniest residential districts, something like a mob hit on Rodeo Drive.
From his hospital bed, García Harfuch — a former federal cop who also has a law degree — blamed the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel.
Ongoing threats against García Harfuch are frequently reported in the Mexican press, including chilling scribbled death threats found in May alongside several mangled bodies, presumed cartel victims, dumped outside Acapulco.
“García Harfuch is the cartels’ enemy No. 1,” said David Saucedo, a security analyst. “He’s become a headache for them. The cartels were accustomed to making deals with [the government]. … But Harfuch gives the impression that he’s not disposed to reach an agreement with organized crime groups. And that’s a problem for the cartels.”
Security is Mexicans’ major concern, and Garcia Harfuch gives the impression that the good guys are cracking down, even if many are dubious about the steep crime declines Sheinbaum regularly touts.
Homicides have nose-dived by almost 40% since Sheinbaum took office last year, the government says, though critics call the statistic inflated — it excludes, for instance, the rising numbers of “disappeared” people, presumed crime victims consigned to clandestine graves.
And some have suggested that Sheinbaum’s save-the-day call-ups of her media-savvy security chief are more performative than substantive, and probably counterproductive.
“There’s no Batman,” columnist Viri Ríos wrote recently in Mexico’s Milenio newspaper. “The myth of Batman is dangerous, especially for Harfuch. Making him a myth imposes on him the responsibility of pacifying the country. But, as we all know, Omar can’t defeat organized crime by himself.”
In fact, García Harfuch has relatively few forces under his direct command. Corruption remains rampant among state and municipal police, prosecutors and judges in Mexico, often rendering them unreliable partners. Thus García Harfuch is dependent on other agencies, notably the national guard, a 200,000-strong force under military command.
García Harfuch regularly extols his relationship with the armed forces, despite rumors of resentment against his sweeping powers and his closeness to Sheinbaum. Mexico’s first female president also serves as military commander in chief.
García Harfuch is said to have the trust of U.S. law enforcement, even though the Trump administration’s ever-escalating demands and threats of unilateral strikes on Mexican territory put him in a tough spot. Only last week, Trump declared that he was “not happy” with narcotics-fighting efforts in Mexico.
“The Americans have confidence in García Harfuch, but they are always asking for more — more arrests, more extraditions, more decommissions” of drug labs, said Saucedo, the security analyst.
For security reasons, officials provide few details on García Harfuch’s personal life, beyond saying he is divorced and a father.
García Harfuch descends from a line of prominent government officials, their careers reflecting, in part, Mexico’s past under a repressive, authoritarian government.
His grandfather, Gen. Marcelino García Barragán, was a secretary of defense during the infamous 1968 massacre of student protesters in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco district; and his father, Javier García Paniagua, was a politician who held various posts, including chief of a now-disbanded federal police agency assailed for human rights abuses.
Mexico’s top cop may not wear a cape and mask, but his background does have a touch of show business: His mother, María Sorté, is one of Mexico’s best-known actors, often portraying characters in telenovelas, or soap operas. Few know her real name, María Harfuch Hidalgo, whose paternal surname reflects her Lebanese ancestry.
“Harfuch strikes me as a good man with fine intentions,” said Carmen Zamora, 46, a restaurant owner in Mexico City. “But he needs more time. One cannot resolve in one year the violence that we have seen for so long in Mexico.”
Carlos Monjarraz, 34, a capital car salesman, is not convinced.
“All this Batman stuff is just a joke on Mexicans when everything is the same — the same murders, narco-trafficking, insecurity,” Monjarraz said. “We don’t need a Batman to save us. What we need is for authorities to jail the real criminals — crooked politicians who keep protecting each other.”
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
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