Exclusive: 40 agents leave the DEA in Mexico and Biden displays a change of strategy against cartels

In recent hours, the federal government has been reporting movements within the DEA staff in Mexico. According to the National Palace, 40 agents, of the 50 members who are formally part of the anti-drug operations in the country, are leaving their positions. This is an abrupt, rare change, even for administration transitions in the United States.

The National Intelligence Center has been recently reporting that half of the outgoing officers are returning to serve in the US and the other half will be relocated to other countries in the region. The movement anticipates a quantum shift in Joe Biden's strategy for the Mexican drug drama.

This change is related to certain visions shared by America's next attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, who Barack Obama unsuccessfully tried to promote to the Supreme Court.

"The exit of 40 of the 50 agents that the DEA officially has operating in Mexico anticipates a quantum shift in Biden's strategy regarding the drug drama. New attorney general Merrick Garland understands that the agency's strategy has not stopped the drug problem and sparked violence."

Garland has Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general, who has currently been affected by the fiasco of Operation Fast and Furious in Mexico. Both understand, according to information revealed to LPO, that Mexico requires a change of strategy by the DEA because the current course has not slowed the entry of drugs into the US, while unleashing great violence in Mexico.

"The DEA's action can't be reduced to just catching famous drug dealers that are featured in series and movies," a Mexican official heard last week from a permanent Garland contributor.

The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador can't clearly foresee where the views of Garland and Monaco will take, but the dominant thesis is that there will be a period focused on providing information, offering training and restructuring the actions in Mexican territory.

"When Monaco, as an official of the Obama administration, met with Senator Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong (then Segob's incumbent), she was highly critical of the total war strategy adopted by the DEA in agreement with Felipe Calderón."

One detail: one of the issues faced by Garland at the time in the Supreme Court of the US was that, at Senate hearings, she implied that she empathized with the legalization of certain drugs. With that less punitive profile, she ended up losing the support of several Republican senators.

That fact is combined with a more reserved one: when Monaco, as an official of the Obama administration, met with Senator Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong (then Segob's incumbent), she was highly critical of the total war strategy adopted by the DEA in agreement with the six-year administration of Felipe Calderón.

This change of views, which at the moment remains low-profile, comes at the worst moment of the DEA in Mexico, when the agency is denoted by López Obrador and attorney general Alejandro Gertz, after the arrest and then release of General Salvador Cienfuegos.