MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her government was never informed that CIA agents would be participating in the raid of a clandestine drug lab, an incident that comes amid growing tension between the U.S. and Mexico on how to battle cartels.
According to sources familiar with the operation, the incident involved four CIA agents, raising questions about the scope of the agency’s activity in Mexico.
The Sunday raid was at least the third time this year that CIA operatives joined authorities in the northern border state of Chihuahua in an operation against a drug target, the sources said.
The agents in Sunday’s raid were dressed in Chihuahua State Investigative Agency uniforms to blend in with Mexican officials, said people familiar with the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. A CIA spokesperson said the agency could not comment.
U.S. agencies, including the CIA, regularly provide intelligence for Mexican police and the military, but participation in law enforcement operations by foreign agents is outlawed by the Mexican Constitution.
President Trump has repeatedly suggested U.S. forces could take action against cartels in Mexico — even designating various cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — but Sheinbaum has strenuously rejected any intervention, saying it would violate Mexican sovereignty.
The involvement of the CIA reflects the Trump administration’s increasing demands for results in the fight against cartels on Mexican soil, said the people familiar with the operation.
Sheinbaum, citing the need for bilateral cooperation, said that “any relationship with the United States government” — especially issues regarding security — must be channeled through Mexico’s federal government, specifically the ministry of foreign affairs.
But cooperation, she said, should not extend to foreign agents operating in Mexico. “This is a requirement enshrined in both the Constitution and the law,” she said.
Sovereignty is a major issue in Mexico given the history of U.S. interventions in the country, especially the war of 1846-48, in which Mexico lost half its territory to the United States.
Without mentioning the CIA specifically, Sheinbaum said the country’s military “did not know that there were individuals participating — persons who were neither Mexican citizens nor members of the security agencies of the State of Chihuahua — but rather that foreigners were involved in this operation. And this is a matter that should not be taken lightly by any Mexican.”
Members of her Cabinet, she said, reached out to the U.S. Embassy for an explanation for the presence of the U.S. agents at the raid.
The operation against the lab on Sunday, an otherwise routine event, has made headlines in Mexico after it was revealed that two members of the CIA and two Mexican officials died in a nighttime vehicle crash after the raid on the mountain hideout.
People familiar with the operation said that two additional CIA officials also were present during the raid.
As authorities were returning from the raid, the driver of the vehicle carrying two of the agents drove off the road and plunged hundreds of feet down the mountain and then burst into flames, according to the Chihuahua attorney general.
The two other CIA agents, who had been following in a pickup truck, went down the mountain by foot in hopes of saving their colleagues, but it was too late, said a person familiar with the crash.
The operation brought together the CIA officers and state authorities in Chihuahua, and that collaboration was a source of consternation for Mexican federal officials. Sheinbaum said she is considering possible sanctions against the Chihuahua state government.
Within Sheinbaum’s security cabinet, there was alarm that the CIA was working directly with state officials without the agency notifying its Mexican counterparts, people familiar with the group’s deliberations said.
Under the previous Mexican administration, the government conducted strong counterintelligence that tracked U.S. law enforcement efforts across the country, said one person familiar with the operations. This event shows the opposite, that person said.
When news of the operation broke Sunday, the Chihuahua attorney general, César Jáuregui Moreno, attempted to downplay its significance, insisting that U.S. officials did not participate in the drug raid. He said it was carried out by 40 members of the State Investigation Agency and 40 members of the Mexican army.
In a statement, Jáuregui described the Americans then as “instructors from the U.S. Embassy” who were in the state giving a course on drone operation.
He said that as the director of the State Investigative Agency was returning to the city of Chihuahua, he encountered the Americans who “asked for assistance to travel along with the convoy in which the director was traveling.”
“They got into the vehicle at approximately two in the morning,” Jáuregui added in the statement, “and suffered the accident in which they lost their lives when it went off the road into one of the ravines in the area.”
Fisher is a special correspondent. This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom that covers stories from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border.
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