The United States has intensified secret drone flights above Mexico to hunt fentanyl laboratories, part of the Trump administration’s more aggressive campaign against drug cartels, according to US officials.
The Covert Drone program, which has not been disclosed before, began under the Biden administration, according to American officials and other familiar with the program.
But President Trump and his CIA director John Ratcliffe have repeatedly promised a more intense action against Mexican drug cartels. The increase in drone flights was a rapid initial step.
The CIA has not been authorized to use drones to take fatal measures, said those responsible, adding that they do not plan to use drones to make air strikes. For the moment, the CIA officers in Mexico are involved in the information collected by drones to Mexican officials.
Flights are “well in sovereign Mexico,” said an American official.
The Mexican government has taken action to respond to the Trump administration concerns about fentanyl, deploying 10,000 soldiers on the border this month to thwart smuggling. But the Trump administration wants Mexico to do more to destroy or dismantle fentanyl laboratories and grasp more drugs.
Drones have proven to be able to identify the laboratories, according to people knowing the program. Fentanyl laboratories emit chemicals that make them easy to find in the air.
However, during the Biden administration, the Mexican government was slow to take measures against the laboratories identified by the Americans, although it used information to make arrests, according to two of the officials.
The officials have all spoken of the state that their names are not used so that they can discuss a classified intelligence program and a sensitive diplomacy between Mexico and the United States.
Surveillance flights have already caused consternation in Mexico, which has been wary of his northern neighbor for a long time after several American invasions and land seized.
Asked about the drone surveillance program at a press conference on Tuesday morning, President Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico rejected her as part of the country’s long -standing cooperation with the American forces.
“It’s part of this little campaign,” said Sheinbaum.
In addition to the CIA efforts, the northern command of the American army also extends its border surveillance. But the American army, unlike the espionage agency, does not enter the Mexican airspace.
Until now, the Northern Command has carried out more than two dozen surveillance flights above the southern border using a variety of surveillance aircraft, including U-2, RIVT RIVET joints,, P-8 And drones, said a senior American military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational issues.
The army also created a special intelligence working group of 140 analysts, located near the border, to analyze the information collected by surveillance flights and other sources, said the Northern Command a declaration This month.
General Gregory Mr. Guillot, the chief of the Northern Command, said to the Senate Last week, analysts provide information that “obtains cartel networks that stimulate the production and distribution of fentanyl and push it through the border”.
In response to legislators’ questions, General Guillot said that the information had been shared with Mexican officials to help them “fight the cartel’s violence in terms of sending troops”. General Guillot said his command had increased information to make “rapid progress against this threat”.
Asked about General Guillot’s comments, Ms. Sheinbaum said that Mexican sovereignty was “not negotiable and that we will always coordinate without subordinate”.
Officials from the White House, CIA and Pentagon have all refused to comment on the secret intelligence program.
The designation gives the American government large powers to impose economic sanctions on the groups and entities linked to them. But cartels are already subject to heavy sanctions by the American government, and a foreign terrorist designation would not provide new important tools to block their financial maneuvers, according to former American officials who have worked on these issues.
Although the sanctions are not necessary for the CIA prohibited information collection, several former officials said that the designation was an important symbolic step which could, possibly, be followed by operations extended by military or American intelligence agencies.
The seventh special forces group of the US military began a training exercise in Mexico this month. Major Russell Gordon, spokesperson for the First Special Forces Command, said that training with the Mexican maritime infantry was pre-plane and was part of “long-standing cooperation of American-mexic defense”.
However, former officials say they believe that US military and intelligence agencies are likely to increase training with the Mexican authorities in the coming months.
The conduct of an aerial strike on fentanyl laboratories would probably lead to catastrophic deaths, because they often find themselves inside the houses of the urban areas, said a person familiar with the program, probably contributing to the reluctance to authorize the Letal force.
The possibility of violence also exists if the army or the Mexican police moves against the laboratory.
But the aim of providing intelligence to the Mexican authorities is not to kill members of the cartel, but rather to deactivate the laboratories, according to US officials informed of the program.
If the cooperation and sharing of information do not lead to the destruction of laboratories, the Trump administration has reported that it is considering alternative movements.
During a visit to the southwest border this month, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, did not exclude cross-border raids to pursue cartels in Mexico.
“All the options are on the table,” HegSeth told journalists.
In the transition to the new Trump administration, a former senior American official said that incoming aid had clearly indicated that they were planning to use the American full device to the fight against terrorism – surveillance and satellite planes, of the Intelligence analysts, as well as American staff or military entrepreneurs – to go after the cartels inside Mexico.
Ms. Sheinbaum, president of Mexico, was toasted by journalists about the widening military flights at the border, after being detected on January 31.
Last week, the Secretary of Defense of Mexico, General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, told journalists that the soldiers had received no request from the United States to fly in Mexican airspace and insisted that Surveillance flights had not violated international law while they were flying over international waters.
A few days later, while more surveillance flights were detected along the border, Ms. Sheinbaum said that thefts were not new, suggesting that they had taken place under Mr. Biden, but did not have developed. She said that thefts were “part of the dialogue, the coordination, which we have”.
Trump announced a former CIA paramilitary officer Ronald Johnson, as his choice to serve as an ambassador to Mexico. Former officials said they thought Mr. Johnson had been used because of his work experience with the spy agency and the special military operations forces.
The president also announced this month that he would appoint Joe Kent, a former green beret of the army and paramilitary officer of the CIA, as director of the National Counterterroism Center.
Mark Mazzetti contributed Washington’s reports, and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City.
