Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum denies reports of CIA operations against cartels 

President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected a media report suggesting that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives from the United States directly participated in deadly operations targeting drug cartels on Mexican territory.

In her morning news conference on Wednesday, Sheinbaum said that reports, from CNN and The New York Times, about such activity were fictitious.

The CIA has also denied the reports, while CNN has said that it stands by its reporting.

“Imagine how big the lie is if the CIA itself needs to come out and dismiss” the story, Sheinbaum told reporters. She likewise called a New York Times report a “fiction the size of the universe”.

It was the highest-level rejection yet to come from the Mexican government since the allegations were made on Tuesday.

Sheinbaum has continued to insist that US law enforcement officials do not directly participate in operations on Mexican soil, despite news reports suggesting otherwise.

On Tuesday, CNN quoted anonymous sources as saying that the CIA had engaged in an “expanded and previously unreported” campaign to attack cartels within Mexico, including by directly participating in targeted assassinations.

The report pointed to a March 2026 explosion that killed Francisco Beltran, a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as his driver.

Mexico’s security laws require that foreign operatives receive permission from the federal government to operate on the country’s soil.

CNN’s reporting suggested that some of the alleged CIA activity may not have been coordinated with Mexico’s government, however.

While Sheinbaum’s government has acknowledged sharing intelligence with the US, it has rejected the prospect of US forces operating without its permission on Mexican territory.

The recent CNN report has prompted condemnation on both sides of the US-Mexico border.

In a social media post, CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons called the report a case of “false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk”.

Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar Harfuch, meanwhile, acknowledged that cooperation between the two governments “does exist”. However, he, too, asserted that the CNN report was inaccurate.

“The Government of Mexico categorically rejects any narrative that seeks to normalize, justify, or suggest the existence of lethal, covert, or unilateral operations by foreign agencies within national territory,” he wrote on social media.

CNN has said it stands by the accuracy of its reporting. Its report is the latest incident in which CIA agents were rumoured to be operating in Mexico, potentially without Mexican federal permission.

In April, for instance, two US officials, widely believed to have been CIA officers, also died in a car accident while returning with Mexican security forces from a raid on a drug facility.

Sheinbaum’s government has denied knowledge of any CIA involvement in drug-busting operations and called for an investigation into the incident.

State officials in Chihuahua, meanwhile, have argued that the two US officials were simply getting a lift to the airport from Mexican law enforcement agents, after overseeing instruction on how to operate drones.

But questions about the possibility of covert US operations on Mexican soil have increased since President Donald Trump took office for a second term in 2025.

Trump has sought to exert influence over Mexico’s policies in areas such as crime, border enforcement and drug trafficking, using tariffs on imported goods as leverage.

He has also threatened to take unilateral action against Mexico’s criminal networks, despite Sheinbaum’s insistence that such a move would violate the country’s sovereignty.

“We have to eradicate them,” Trump said of Mexico’s cartels in March.

“We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us, too close to you.”

While Mexico and the US have long collaborated on anti-drug efforts in the form of intelligence sharing and security cooperation, direct US involvement has been seen as a red line in the country with a long history of US intervention.