(José Niño, Headline USA) Two CIA officers killed in a vehicle crash in Mexico were wearing uniforms of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency during a raid on Sinaloa Cartel methamphetamine labs, according to reporting by veteran journalist Ioan Grillo on Substack.
The incident occurred on April 20 when a convoy was returning from a two-day operation that dismantled one of Mexico’s largest clandestine meth lab networks in the remote Sierra de Chihuahua region. One SUV plunged off a narrow mountain road into a ravine and burst into flames, per CBS News. Four people died: the director of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency, Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes; one of his officers, Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes; and the two Americans, per the Los Angeles Times and CNN.
According to Al Jazeera, the uniform detail directly contradicts Chihuahua state attorney general César Jáuregui’s initial claim that the Americans were merely “instructors” stationed hours away from the raid site who were picked up by the convoy on its way back — “giving their US counterparts a lift to the airport, nothing more,” as his office put it. A US government source confirmed to Grillo that the agents were operationally embedded in the raid itself and wearing local uniforms to blend in, as the Los Angeles Times also reported.
A separate US agent interviewed by Grillo described this as a longstanding if unofficial practice. “We have always been there,” the agent said, noting that US personnel have embedded with Mexican law enforcement on operations going back to the 1970s as Grillo highlighted.
The Los Angeles Times noted that Mexican officials at the scene briefly discussed concealing or moving the CIA agents’ bodies in a moment of panic before the incident went public.
According to the Associated Press, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her security cabinet had no knowledge that CIA operatives were running joint operations with the Chihuahua state government. “There cannot be agents from any U.S. government institution operating in the Mexican field,” she stated. She placed blame on Chihuahua Governor María Eugenia Campos, whose administration is controlled by the opposition PAN party, calling it a violation of national sovereignty, as reported by Mexico News Daily.
The Los Angeles Times reported this was at least the third CIA operation in Chihuahua this year alone, carried out in coordination with state officials but without informing Mexico City.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
