MEXICO CITY – Months after a deadly car wreck revealed the CIA’s participation in a raid on a Chihuahua drug lab, authorities arrested César Jáuregui, Chihuahua’s former attorney general, for allegedly allowing US spies to participate in the operation without permission from the Mexican government. Gilberto Loya Chávez, the acting head of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, said in a video message that Jáuregui is under investigation for unlawful exercise of public service and conspiracy by public officials. Jáuregui is due to appear before a judge, Loya Chávez added, but did not say when. The arrest, the official explained, came after the Attorney General’s Office concluded that there had been misconduct in an April operation in which state officials dismantled a clandestine drug-manufacturing laboratory. The CIA’s participation came to light soon after the raid on April 19. That day, while he was still attorney general, Jáuregui himself announced that four people had died in a car crash as they were returning from a drug raid in northern Chihuahua: two Mexican law enforcement officials and two Americans, whom he identified as instructors from the US Embassy in Mexico City.
Days later, CNN and other media outlets revealed that the two Americans were not just embassy workers: they were CIA agents. The agency has significantly expanded its clandestine anti-cartel operations in the country during President Donald Trump’s second term – including assassinations of alleged cartel members and drone flights over Mexican territory. On Saturday, Loya Chávez was careful to say that the issue at hand was not the drug raid itself, but rather the participation of US officials outside the bounds of Mexican law.
“This action does not disregard the work of the State Investigation Agency, the State Attorney General’s Office, or the Armed Forces in dismantling the clandestine laboratory, because it is of course a very significant result in the fight against organized crime,” Loya Chávez said. “What is being investigated is the way this operation was conducted, the failure to observe the chain of command and the applicable protocols.”
