The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during his morning press conference on March 6. Mario Guzmán (EFE)
Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched himself against the DEA after it was revealed that United States anti-narcotics agents infiltrated the Los Chapitos criminal group, the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel controlled by the heirs of Joaquín El Chapo
Guzmán
.
"How are they going to be spying?!" Questioned the president of Mexico at his press conference this Monday.
"It is an abusive and arrogant interference, which should not be accepted for any reason," added the president.
López Obrador's new claim comes three days after Washington announced a judicial crusade against fentanyl trafficking and declassified charges for drug trafficking and organized crime against four sons of the capo: Ovidio Guzmán
El Ratón
, Joaquín Guzmán, Alfredo Guzmán and Iván Guzmán.
After weeks of tensions in security matters, López Obrador, who since December 2020 restricted the room for maneuver of foreign agents in Mexican territory, complained that the DEA did not request authorization from his Mexican counterparts to operate on the ground against Los Chapitos. .
US intelligence reports against the Guzmán brothers revealed the criminal organization's routes, suppliers and acts of torture, such as feeding its enemies to tigers.
“Over the past year and a half, the DEA has proactively infiltrated the Sinaloa Cartel and the Los Chapitos faction, gained unprecedented access to the highest levels of the organization, and has followed them around the world,” he stated. agency head Anne Milgram.
More information
Experiments with fentanyl, business with bitcoin and torture with tigers: this is how the criminal enterprise of Los Chapitos works
"Acts of espionage cannot be used," López Obrador said after also criticizing that the United States authorities have made public friction between the Mexican Army and Navy.
The president threatened to bring his claims to the bilateral negotiating table and stated that he will not allow meddling in his government's security policy.
"There can be no foreign agents in our country," he settled.
In the string of reproaches, once again, the State Department, with which the president has confronted in recent weeks, came to light.
The announcement of the Justice Department's offensive against Los Chapitos came a day after a delegation of Mexican officials, led by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez, met in Washington to discuss the fentanyl crisis. , which has established itself as the new protagonist of the war against drug trafficking.
Less than 24 hours after the Mexican entourage reaffirmed that this synthetic drug is not produced in the Latin American country, the White House released more than a hundred pages of the judicial summary against the heirs of the Sinaloa Cartel that detailed just the opposite. : that there are alliances between Chinese pharmacists to supply the Mexican cartels with chemical precursors,
Another of the messages between the lines is that the United States was taking action on the matter and putting pressure on its Mexican partners.
Washington has made it clear that it is seeking at all costs the extradition of Ovidio Guzmán, captured in January of this year and who is facing charges in courts in the District of Columbia, New York and Illinois.
“We work very closely with the Mexican government,” Ken Salazar, the US ambassador to Mexico, said last weekend.
Salazar went to the National Palace, the seat of the Mexican Government, on Monday and withdrew without giving a statement.
The extradition processes go through a judicial process, but are ultimately authorized by the Mexican Executive.
El Raton and his lawyers have filed appeals to delay the process and have come to ensure that he is not the capo whom the authorities are looking for.
Also in line for possible extraditions is drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, the highest-profile capture during the López Obrador government, identified as responsible for the murder of Enrique Kiki
Camarena
, a DEA agent, in the 1980s.
His process is also underway.
The United States has demanded that Mexico increase the extraditions of drug traffickers to an average of 60 transfers per year, according to an investigation by EL PAÍS based on leaked documents from the Ministry of National Defense.
In the midst of the questions against the Joe Biden government for the fight against drug trafficking, the hard wing of the Republican Party has turned fentanyl trafficking and criticism of López Obrador's security policy into one of its main bets towards the presidential election. of 2024. The publication of the criminal charges against Los Chapitos is presented as a response to criticism, but the reaction of the Mexican government shows that the forms have not been liked by the president and the forms of the president are not liked by a large part of the Biden Cabinet either. .
The judicial coup against the Sinaloa Cartel is emerging as a dominant issue on the security agenda between the two countries in the coming months, amid diplomatic turmoil and mutual reproaches.
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