Mexico closes elite investigative unit, in a coup to anti-drug cooperation with the US

Mexico dissolved a select anti-narcotics unit that for a quarter of a century worked hand in hand with the US anti-drug agency (DEA) in the fight against organized crime, two sources said, in a serious blow to bilateral security cooperation.

The group was one of the special investigations units (SIU) operating in some 15 countries that US officials consider invaluable in dismantling powerful smuggling networks and catching countless drug lords around the world.

SIU are trained by the DEA, but are under the control of national governments.

In Mexico, the more than 50 officers of that police unit were considered among the best in the country and worked on the most important cases, such as the capture in 2016 of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, then the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

The shutdown threatens to jeopardize U.S. efforts to combat organized crime groups within the Latin American country, one of the epicenters of the multimillion-dollar global narcotics trade, and make it difficult to capture and prosecute cartel leaders.

The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador formally notified the DEA in April last year that the unit had been shut down, according to a DEA agent with knowledge of the matter who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. A second source familiar with the situation confirmed the closure of the group.

Mexico's Ministry of Public Security and Citizen Protection did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The DEA refused to discuss the issue. No one had reported until now about the closure of the unit. Reuters could not figure out why the Mexican government didn't announce it publicly at the time.

“They strangled her,” the officer said, referring to the unit. “It shatters the bridges that took us decades to build.”

The closure could prove costly on the streets of the United States, where authorities are fighting to reduce an increase in overdoses that last year led to more than 100,000 deaths, mostly linked to a new wave of synthetic drugs produced by Mexican cartels.

The elite team, founded in 1997, was the main channel for the DEA to share with the Mexican government clues about drug shipments and evidence obtained on US soil.

The US drug agency reportedly brought the new Mexican members of the police unit to its state-of-the-art facility in Quantico, Virginia, to train them in the latest surveillance techniques. They would have been examined, even with polygraph tests.

A second Mexican unit of SIU, headquartered within the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic and independent of the Government, continues to operate.

For Mike Vigil, former head of international operations at the DEA, the closure of the SIU and the president's restriction of security cooperation will harm both countries.

“It will mean more drugs going to the United States and more violence in Mexico,” he warned.

The closure of the SIU is the most recent example of the breakdown of cooperation between the DEA and Mexico since López Obrador took office in 2018 and promised to reform national security policy.

Enraged by the dizzying bloodshed he attributed to his predecessors' heavy-handed tactics, the ruler sought to implement a less belligerent policing style and pledged to address what he says are the root causes of violence, such as poverty, rather than persecuting cartel chiefs.

The president also hindered foreign security officials from operating inside Mexico, reprimanding the DEA for a modus operandi that, he said, amounts to trampling on his country's sovereignty.

Privately, U.S. officials point out that Mexico's vital role in blocking the flow of migrants from Latin America, a priority for Washington, leaves them limited influence to pressure López Obrador on other issues, such as security cooperation.

Although the reputation of the SIU was damaged when its former chief Iván Reyes was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty in a US court to taking bribes to leak information to a drug gang, DEA officials considered the unit vital and needed Mexican agents to support their investigations in the country.

The alarm bells for the future of the unit rang in 2019, when López Obrador suspended the activity of the Federal Police, within which the SIU was located, to create a new force called the National Guard.

DEA agents continued to work with their Mexican counterparts for a while, especially at the airport in Mexico City, where members of the group intercepted the smuggling of fentanyl, a hyperpotent synthetic drug attributed to the skyrocketing overdose in the United States.

But security cooperation between the DEA and Mexico plummeted to a new low in October 2020, when former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested in Los Angeles, claiming he was in collusion with a drug cartel.

US prosecutors quickly released Cienfuegos, citing “sensitive” foreign policy considerations, but López Obrador accused the DEA of having “unprofessionalism” and manufacturing evidence in the case.

In December 2020, the Mexican government stripped foreign agents of diplomatic immunity and forced local officials to write reports on interactions with foreign security agents.

“That was the nail in the coffin,” considered the DEA agent. Months later, the SIU was closed.

By the time the unit was formally dissolved, according to that source, it had already been inoperative for some time because the Mexican National Guard put the deterrence of violence before drug cartel investigations.

But with more than 33,000 homicides recorded in the Latin American nation last year, Vigil said it doesn't make sense to close an elite unit that pursues organized crime groups responsible for most of the murders.

“Mexico is shooting itself in the foot,” he said.

With information from Reuters

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