Mexico is investigating a possible violation of the country's constitution after it was reported that two US embassy employees died in a car accident while returning from a raid on a drug lab with local authorities. However, the Americans were actually CIA agents, The Guardian reported.
The incident occurred early Sunday as the employees were returning from the scene of the operation. The vehicle went off the road and fell into a 200-meter ravine in the mountains near the border of Chihuahua with Sinaloa state. The US has since offered conflicting accounts of whether and how the Americans were involved in the operation.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said neither she nor her office was aware of the operation. "We are investigating what these people were doing and which agency they were from", Sheinbaum said at a press conference. "So far, the information we have is that they worked together (with the US government - b.a.), and therefore the attorney general will have to investigate to see if this was in violation of the constitution and the national security law," she added.
Mexico's national security law does not allow joint operations to be carried out without prior approval from the federal government. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the deaths of the embassy employees on Sunday but has yet to comment on subsequent reports that they were CIA agents.
The incident comes at a tense time in relations between the two countries, as Donald Trump has demanded more action from Mexico against drug trafficking to the United States, while Sheinbaum has sought to protect Mexico's sovereignty. U.S. law enforcement activities in Mexico are a politically sensitive issue, given past interventions in the region. Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected Trump's proposals to send troops to Mexico to help fight the cartels.
Although Trump has repeatedly threatened military strikes against Mexican cartels, U.S. law enforcement and the embassy in Mexico have stressed that they are working with Mexican authorities. The US action involves the CIA, which has taken a much larger role in combating drug trafficking in the Americas since Trump returned to the White House and designated various organized crime groups, including several Mexican cartels, as terrorist organizations. CIA information is said to have helped locate "El Mencho", one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers, who was killed in a Mexican army operation in February.
But Sunday's case has raised questions about the CIA's role in Mexico and whether it goes beyond sharing intelligence. On Monday, Chihuahua's attorney general said that American "instructors" were not directly involved in the operation and arrived on site only after it had been carried out, for training purposes. He added that Sheinbaum's office was not notified of the operation because only Mexican agents were involved. This contradicts an earlier statement from the prosecutor's office, which said the Americans died while returning "from an operation to dismantle a secret laboratory."
"There is extensive cooperation and coordination, but no joint operations on the ground," said Claudia Sheinbaum. "If this investigation confirms that there was a joint operation, then appropriate sanctions will have to be considered," she added.