Mexican authorities disintegrated anti-drug group that collaborated with the DEA

The Mexican government dismantled a group dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime that collaborated with the United States Anti-Drug Agency (DEA), and which would have been trained by the same US agency.

Diplomatic sources from the US Embassy in Mexico confirmed to the newspaper La Jornada that the group of just over 50 police officers was disintegrated by the Mexican authorities, as notified by the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Although the Mexican authorities refused to testify on the matter, the sources consulted assured that the closure of the elite group was formally informed to the US authorities.

The group was part of the set of special investigations units (SIU) which were trained by the DEA itself, a US agency with which they collaborated extensively despite claiming that they responded to the orders of local governments.

According to sources consulted by Reuters on the same matter, the US authorities assured that the disintegration of the group “is a serious blow to bilateral security cooperation.”

The members of the group would have been selected from among prominent police officers, and would be considered “among the best” in organized crime, and would have collaborated in relevant operations, such as the capture of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán in 2016.

Although the news about the disintegration of the SIU group was spread until early April, the group was dismantled last year, said a DEA agent who shared information with Reuters.

Special investigations units linked to the DEA operate in about 15 countries around the world, which maintain close relations with the US government, which use resources to combat drug smuggling networks and to monitor drug lords.

The Mexican elite group linked to the DEA was created in 1997 and was the main tool of the US government to obtain information on the trafficking of drugs to the neighboring country of Mexico.

The officers who made up the group were taken to the DEA training facility in Quantico, Virginia, where they were given polygraph tests to prevent possible acts of corruption.

Although this SIU group was disintegrated, another group of the same nature would continue to operate within the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR), a agency with which the country's Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection cooperates independently, on which the terminated group (SSC) depended.

The former head of international operations of the DEA, Mike Vigil said that the decision by the Government of Mexico “will mean more drugs going to the United States and more violence in Mexico.”

At the end of March, the DEA reported that the arrest of José Alfredo Cardenas Martínez, El Contador, leader of the Gulf Cartel, captured in the first days of the month, was made thanks to the close collaboration of agents of the US agency with Mexican authorities.

“Through the joint investigation of our office in Harlingen, Texas, in coordination with our Mexico Attaché and other partners, we were able to gather significant evidence that was instrumental in the case against El Contador,” said HSI Special Agent Shane Folden, following the announcement of pending charges against the nephew of Oziel Cardenas Guillen, on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas,” the agency reported.

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