The CIA has significantly expanded covert operations targeting Mexican drug cartels, including actions that allegedly involved direct participation in deadly attacks inside Mexico, according to a CNN investigation. 

The report claims the agency’s secretive Ground Branch unit participated in operations against cartel members, including the March 28 killing of Francisco Beltrán, known as “El Payín,” described as a mid-level Sinaloa Cartel figure. 

He and his driver were killed when a car exploded on a highway near Mexico City in what CNN described as a targeted assassination allegedly facilitated by CIA operatives. 

“The lethality of their operations has been seriously ramped up,” said one person briefed on the operations, calling it “a significant expansion of the kind of thing the CIA has been willing to do inside Mexico.”

The CIA denied the report. “This is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk,” said CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons.

This is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk. pic.twitter.com/4HYTQYH90l

— Liz Lyons (@CIASpox) May 12, 2026

Mexican authorities also strongly rejected the allegations. “The Mexican government categorically rejects any versions (of events) that seek to ⁠normalize, justify or suggest the existence of lethal, covert or unilateral operations by foreign agencies on Mexican soil,” Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch wrote on X. 

Respecto a la versión difundida por CNN sobre una explosión ocurrida en Tecámac, Estado de México, en la que se señala una presunta participación de la CIA en operaciones contra cárteles, el Gobierno de México rechaza categóricamente cualquier versión que pretenda normalizar,…

— Omar H Garcia Harfuch (@OHarfuch) May 12, 2026

García Harfuch confirmed that Mexico continues to cooperate with the U.S. in the operation against cartels but stressed that such collaboration remains within clearly defined limits. “International cooperation is restricted to information exchange, institutional coordination, and formal mechanisms established by the Government of Mexico,” he said. 

He added that cooperation with the U.S. is conducted under “clear principles: respect for sovereignty, shared responsibility, mutual trust, and cooperation without subordination.”

The CNN report comes after two CIA officers, previously described as embassy personnel, were killed alongside two Mexican investigators during a counter-narcotics operation in April.

Commenting on the incident, President Claudia Sheinbaum said the federal government was unaware of any direct foreign participation in its cartel operations, stressing that Mexican law prohibits unauthorized foreign agents from taking part in domestic operations.

“Evidently, the military didn’t know there were people participating who weren’t Mexican citizens,” Sheinbaum said. 

“What we told [the U.S. government] was that the federal government didn’t know about the involvement of these people and we hope that it’s an exception,” she added.