Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has stated that neither she nor her team were aware of the presence of United States agents in Mexico, after an accident in Chihuahua left two American personnel dead. The president has assured that it will be reviewed whether there was a violation of the national security law and that the management has been in charge of the Government of Chihuahua. “There is collaboration, there is cooperation, but there are no joint operations either by land or by air. We collaborate within the framework of intelligence and the support given in this regard within the framework of our sovereignty is appreciated,” she said. Sheinbaum recalled that the Constitution establishes that the federal Government must authorize any State for foreign administrations to participate in security matters in national territory.
The Chihuahua Prosecutor’s Office reported this Sunday that four people, two employees of the United States Embassy and two from the state Prosecutor’s Office, had died in a car accident while returning from an operation to destroy clandestine laboratories in the south of the State. The state attorney general, César Jáuregui Moreno, assured that the vehicle skidded and fell down a ravine. The victims are “two instructor officers” from the United States and two Mexicans, the director of the State Investigation Agency, Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes, and the agent Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes. The Americans were carrying out “training, advisory, and course activities in the usual exchange,” explained the prosecutor.
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However, the president has assured that the federal Government was not aware of the operation or the presence of these foreign agents. “We had no knowledge of any direct work between the state of Chihuahua and personnel from the United States embassy in Mexico. So, we are requesting all information from the government of Chihuahua and also from the government of the United States,” she stated at a press conference. Sheinbaum has insisted, as she has on other occasions, that there are no joint security operations between the two countries, and that the relationship is limited to the exchange of intelligence information.