Cartel attacks

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

The CIA has been directly participating in deadly operations against cartel members inside Mexico — including a targeted car bombing that killed an alleged Sinaloa Cartel operative on a busy highway outside Mexico City on March 28 — as part of an expanded covert campaign spearheaded by the agency’s elite Ground Branch unit, CNN reported Tuesday.

The operations may violate Mexican law, which bars foreign agents from participating in law enforcement without federal government approval. Mexican President Sheinbaum said she was not informed of a CIA-participated raid on an alleged meth lab in Chihuahua that preceded two CIA operatives dying in a car crash. “There cannot be agents from any US government institution operating in the Mexican field,” she said.

The CIA called the report “false and salacious” without specifying what was inaccurate. Sources warned the operations risk cartel retaliation spilling into the U.S.

Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch rejected CNN’s characterization of the car bombing as CIA-facilitated — but notably stopped short of denying the report, adding that the government “categorically rejects any version that seeks to normalize” covert foreign operations on Mexican soil.