President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected a media report suggesting that Central Intelligence Company (CIA) operatives from the US straight participated in lethal operations concentrating on drug cartels on Mexican territory.
In her morning information convention on Wednesday, Sheinbaum mentioned that stories, from CNN and The New York Instances, about such exercise have been fictitious.
Really useful Tales
checklist of three gadgetsfinish of checklist
The CIA has additionally denied the stories, whereas CNN has mentioned that it stands by its reporting.
“Think about how large the lie is that if the CIA itself wants to come back out and dismiss” the story, Sheinbaum advised reporters. She likewise referred to as a New York Instances report a “fiction the scale of the universe”.
It was the highest-level rejection but to come back from the Mexican authorities because the allegations have been made on Tuesday.
Sheinbaum has continued to insist that US legislation enforcement officers don’t straight take part in operations on Mexican soil, regardless of information stories suggesting otherwise.
On Tuesday, CNN quoted nameless sources as saying that the CIA had engaged in an “expanded and beforehand unreported” marketing campaign to assault cartels inside Mexico, together with by straight collaborating in focused assassinations.
The report pointed to a March 2026 explosion that killed Francisco Beltran, a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, in addition to his driver.
Mexico’s safety legal guidelines require that overseas operatives obtain permission from the federal authorities to function on the nation’s soil.
CNN’s reporting recommended that among the alleged CIA exercise could not have been coordinated with Mexico’s authorities, nevertheless.
Whereas Sheinbaum’s authorities has acknowledged sharing intelligence with the US, it has rejected the prospect of US forces working with out its permission on Mexican territory.
The current CNN report has prompted condemnation on each side of the US-Mexico border.
In a social media post, CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons referred to as the report a case of “false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing greater than a PR marketing campaign for the cartels and places American lives in danger”.
Mexico’s Safety Secretary Omar Harfuch, in the meantime, acknowledged that cooperation between the 2 governments “does exist”. Nonetheless, he, too, asserted that the CNN report was inaccurate.
“The Authorities of Mexico categorically rejects any narrative that seeks to normalize, justify, or recommend the existence of deadly, covert, or unilateral operations by overseas businesses inside nationwide territory,” he wrote on social media.
CNN has mentioned it stands by the accuracy of its reporting. Its report is the most recent incident by which CIA brokers have been rumoured to be working in Mexico, doubtlessly with out Mexican federal permission.
In April, as an illustration, two US officers, extensively believed to have been CIA officers, additionally died in a automobile accident whereas returning with Mexican safety forces from a raid on a drug facility.
Sheinbaum’s authorities has denied knowledge of any CIA involvement in drug-busting operations and referred to as for an investigation into the incident.
State officers in Chihuahua, in the meantime, have argued that the 2 US officers have been merely getting a raise to the airport from Mexican legislation enforcement brokers, after overseeing instruction on function drones.
However questions on the potential for covert US operations on Mexican soil have elevated since President Donald Trump took workplace for a second time period in 2025.
Trump has sought to exert affect over Mexico’s insurance policies in areas corresponding to crime, border enforcement and drug trafficking, utilizing tariffs on imported items as leverage.
He has additionally threatened to take unilateral motion towards Mexico’s felony networks, regardless of Sheinbaum’s insistence that such a transfer would violate the nation’s sovereignty.
“We’ve got to eradicate them,” Trump mentioned of Mexico’s cartels in March.
“We’ve got to knock the hell out of them as a result of they’re getting worse. They’re taking up their nation. The cartels are working Mexico. We are able to’t have that. Too near us, too near you.”
Whereas Mexico and the US have lengthy collaborated on anti-drug efforts within the type of intelligence sharing and safety cooperation, direct US involvement has been seen as a pink line within the nation with an extended historical past of US intervention.
