Pedestrians stroll previous Mexico’s Consulate Normal in Los Angeles in October, shortly after ex-Mexican Protection Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda’s arrest at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport on the DEA’s request. Expenses have been later dropped.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Pedestrians stroll previous Mexico’s Consulate Normal in Los Angeles in October, shortly after ex-Mexican Protection Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda’s arrest at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport on the DEA’s request. Expenses have been later dropped.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Photos
A senior Drug Enforcement Administration official informed NPR efforts to focus on drug cartels working inside Mexico have unraveled due to a breakdown in cooperation between regulation enforcement companies and militaries within the two nations.
“We’re prepared to share [intelligence] with our counterparts in Mexico, however they themselves are too afraid to even have interaction with us due to repercussions from their very own authorities in the event that they get caught working with DEA,” mentioned Matthew Donahue, the DEA’s deputy chief of operations.
The collapse of joint drug interdiction efforts has occurred at a time when cartels are manufacturing big portions of fentanyl and methamphetamines in unlawful labs inside Mexico.
U.S. officers say these illicit medication are being smuggled into communities throughout america, driving an explosion in overdose deaths that took greater than 90,000 American lives final yr.
In an unique interview with NPR, Donahue described the state of affairs as a nationwide safety disaster.
“It is a nationwide well being risk, it is a nationwide security risk,” he mentioned, including that drug gangs and prison organizations now function inside Mexico with impunity. “They don’t worry any sort of regulation enforcement … or navy within Mexico proper now.”
The disaster started in October when U.S. agents in California did something unprecedented: arresting retired Gen. and former Mexican Protection Minister Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda.
The U.S. accused Cienfuegos of working for one in every of Mexico’s deadliest cartels, the H2, a part of the Beltrán-Leyva trafficking group. Underneath stress from Mexico, then-Attorney General William Barr backpedaled, dropping all charges and releasing Cienfuegos, however consultants mentioned the diplomatic injury was completed.
“Operations have just about been paralyzed mainly,” mentioned Falko Ernst, an analyst with the Worldwide Disaster Group primarily based in Mexico Metropolis. “So what the U.S. had constructed up when it comes to good relationships with elements of the Mexican state have just about been gone.”
There was already a excessive stage of suspicion between the 2 nations earlier than the Cienfuegos arrest. However the U.S. was in a position to goal drug cartels inside Mexico with the assistance of a handful of companies inside the Mexican navy and police.
“They captured many, many, many of those drug trafficking operational heads and midlevel guys, cooperating with particular models within the police, particular models within the marines and elements of the [Mexican] lawyer basic’s workplace,” mentioned Steven Dudley, an skilled on drug interdiction with a assume tank known as InSight Crime.
Now in line with consultants within the U.S., these fragile hyperlinks are damaged.
In response to the Cienfuegos arrest, Mexican lawmakers authorised a measure sharply proscribing U.S. drug operations inside Mexico.
The regulation additionally required Mexican officers to start sharing any intelligence the U.S. offers concerning the cartels with different companies, together with companies the U.S. does not belief. Because of this, joint investigations floor to a halt.
The Mexican authorities declined NPR’s requests for interviews for this story, nor did it reply to questions submitted to a number of companies inside the Mexican authorities.
This diplomatic row comes at a second when the Biden administration can also be coping with an escalation within the variety of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Throughout a convention name with reporters final month, Regina LaBelle, appearing head of the White Home Workplace of Nationwide Drug Management Coverage, informed NPR that drug interdiction efforts could be on the agenda quickly for talks with Mexico.
“I can say proper now there’s ongoing cooperation [between the two countries], however that is definitely going to be the topic of ongoing negotiations within the close to future,” LaBelle mentioned.
However Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an skilled on organized crime and U.S.-Mexico safety cooperation on the College of California, San Diego, informed NPR restoring belief and cooperation will not be simple. She famous Mexican officers are targeted on home politics with midterm elections coming subsequent month.
“It is my expectation is that there is not going to be a variety of consideration to what the U.S. want to do and easy methods to improve that cooperation,” she informed NPR.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the meantime, has voiced skepticism of the previous drug conflict mannequin that focused cartel kingpins.
Whereas that technique led to arrests of high-level traffickers and produced splashy headlines, critics within the U.S. and Mexico mentioned it by no means considerably slowed the stream of medicine into america.
Carrie Kahn, NPR’s worldwide correspondent primarily based in Mexico Metropolis, contributed to this report.
