The Man Who Helped the C.I.A. Secretly Operate in Mexico

What the report says

The New York Times reports that President Claudia Sheinbaum has taken a hard public stance against allowing U.S. forces to operate in Mexico, but the article says the C.I.A. nonetheless developed a presence in the country through a local partner in a northern border state. The piece focuses on how that relationship helped the agency establish a foothold without an overt U.S. military deployment on Mexican soil.

According to the Times, the arrangement centered on Chihuahua, a border region that has long been strategically important because of its proximity to the United States and its role in cross-border security and trafficking issues. The reporting suggests that the local collaborator played a quiet but significant part in enabling C.I.A. activity there, though the available excerpt does not identify the person or specify the full scope of the cooperation.

The development matters because it highlights the tension between Mexico’s sovereignty claims and long-running U.S. intelligence interests in the country. In general, Mexico and the United States have a complicated history of security cooperation, especially around narcotics, organized crime and border control, but the Times’ report indicates this episode involved secret intelligence work rather than an open bilateral program. The article underscores how sensitive such operations remain under Sheinbaum’s government.