Mexico’s President is calling out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for having announced a joint program with Mexico that she says she never agreed to.
During her morning news conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum claimed not to know why the DEA had made such an announcement, as her government had not signed any agreements with the U.S. government.
“We don’t know what they based that on,” Sheinbaum said when asked about the program.
On Monday afternoon, the DEA announced a new program called “Portero” or Gatekeeper, which was aimed at targeting operatives and groups that “control smuggling corridors along the southwest border”.
According to the DEA, the program brought Mexican investigators who would be spending weeks at a U.S. intelligence center, where they would be identifying targets and developing joint strategies to target those groups. The program also called for improved sharing of intelligence between the law enforcement agencies in both countries.
“Project Portero and this new training program show how we will fight – by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners, and by bringing the full strength of the U.S. government to bear. This is a bold first step in a new era of cross-border enforcement, and we will pursue it relentlessly until these violent organizations are dismantled,” said the DEA Administrator, Terrence Cole, in a written statement.
The program brings together Mexican investigators with U.S. law enforcement, prosecutors, defense officials, and members of the intelligence community, officials reported. The training will have participants identify joint targets, develop coordinated enforcement strategies, and strengthen the exchange of intelligence.
Sheinbaum’s denial about working with the DEA comes at a time when her security agencies have been trying to appease the Trump administration over Mexico not doing enough to fight drug cartels. In their attempts to appease U.S. officials, earlier this year, Mexico extradited four dozen cartel leaders who had pending charges in U.S. federal courts.
The pressure on Mexico came earlier this year when U.S. President Donald Trump announced a series of tariffs as a punitive measure on Mexico over the current drug crisis. As Breitbart Texas has reported, the White House publicly called out Mexico’s government for having an “intolerable relationship” with cartels.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate throughout Mexico if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. “Diego Cervantes” contributed to this article.
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