The United States Anti-Drug Agency (DEA) has operated for years without restrictions in Mexico, leading even armed operations, despite the fact that the paper mentions that the actions derived from Mexican authorities after the exchange of information.
Some federal police officers who participated in these high-impact actions in previous six-year terms revealed that they were often concentrated and then transferred to some area of the country, isolated and without saying anything.
Once the green light was given, they reached a point. There were already Americans there, who told them where they should act, because they had located an operator or criminal leader, after intelligence work, monitoring and communications intervention.
Today, the role of that anti-drug agency is the subject of discussion in the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador since the arrest of Salvador Cienfuegos, former Secretary of National Defense, in Los Angeles, California, for alleged links with drug trafficking.
The annoyance of the federal government was because the DEA did not provide information, despite having had an arrest warrant against the general for a year.
APOGEE
The DEA operation became highly relevant in the administration of Felipe Calderón, when Mexico and the United States signed the Merida Initiative. The Americans contributed billions of dollars in equipment and offered training to strengthen the country’s security and justice.
However, during the Enrique Peña Nieto administration, some agents attached to the Binational Intelligence Offices were expelled.
On April 9, 2015, Congress endorsed an initiative by President Peña Nieto that amended the Federal Law on Firearms and Explosives, which established which foreign agents could carry weapons in Mexico.
The Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) published the decree in May of the same year and pointed out that the extraordinary permits were only for foreign public servants of migration or customs, in addition to security personnel who protect heads of state on official visits.
But it does not mention agents of the DEA or other US agencies or other nations.
OFFICES
According to information on the website of the United States Embassy in our country, the DEA has a central office in Mexico City, in addition to five regional offices in Guadalajara, Jalisco; Hermosillo, Sonora; Mazatlan Sinaloa; Mérida, Yucatán, and Monterrey, Nuevo León.
“The DEA, in coordination with other US government agencies, supports the Mexican government in conducting operations against drug trafficking and money laundering,” he details.
In Mexico, there is no law that regulates the presence of agents from the United States or other nations. All are accredited as attachés or diplomatic officers, in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention.
The most emblematic case of the DEA in Mexico is the murder of its agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in Guadalajara in 1985.
Since then, he has sought to bring drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero to justice in his country, who has been a fugitive for seven years, after revoking the protection that allowed his release.
Recently, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador questioned the role of the DEA in Mexico and asked that it carry out a self-criticism about its performance in the country.
Two days after the arrest of General Cienfuegos, he commented: “The DEA should report on their participation in all these cases, because undoubtedly they lived with both (Genaro) García Luna (former Secretary of Public Security) and with the General Secretary of the past administration. And they had no responsibility, for example, in the weapons training in the Fast and Furious operation?
KEYS
SEIZURES
From 2006 to 2014, the DEA managed to have $ 25.7 billion seized from narco worldwide.
AGAINST CARTELS
With information from the agency, the operations of cartels such as the Gulf, Sinaloa and the Beltrán Leyva could be affected in Mexico.
DATABASE
With informants or infiltrated agents, he provided data to the US government to establish charges against capos.
OPERATIONAL
With the operations “Reckoning”, “Xcellerator” and “Coronado” he gave great blows to Mexican cartels.
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