North America

DEA warned Mexican government they will not give out information about their agents in Mexico

This is what the Mexican Government new bill demands. DEA denies dealings with officials who did not go through trust tests.

The proposal with which the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador intends to regulate the actions of foreign security agents in Mexico already poses a frontal conflict with the DEA. According to sources from the National Intelligence Center, two high-ranking figures from the U.S. agency have already told General Audomaro Martínez Zapata that no information will be provided to the Foreign Relations Ministry, nor will any information be provided regarding the identity and resumes of the agents working in Mexico.

This is a highly charged conflict that is looming. The proposed law is a response to the request of the foreign Ministry to limit the DEA's activities in Mexico after the arrest of General Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States.

LPO revealed that privately Cienfuegos says he was arrested as a retaliation ordered by the anti-drug agency after the 2019 Culiacan explosion, where the Mexican Navy was forced to release Chapo Guzman's son.

For the DEA, it is inconceivable to hand over sensitive information to Foreign Ministry officials who do not pass trust tests. This is stipulated in the bill that is currently in the Legislature.

Nor do they trust the Mexican government's system for safeguarding information, where cyber-attacks are frequent, leaks are commonplace, and just two months ago a scheme to defraud businessmen had been set up from the office of Alfonso Romo.

The problem is even more complex if one considers that at present the Mexican State does not have much verification of the number of DEA agents working in the country. A clue to the unevenness of this crossroads: the U.S. has a considerably higher level of information on domestic affairs than Mexican security forces.

The DEA situation in Mexico is going to become the first acid test for future U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.