CIA expands secret drone flights over Mexico

WASHINGTON – The United States has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico to hunt for fentanyl labs, part of the Trump administration’s more aggressive campaign against drug cartels, according to U.S. officials.

The covert drone program, which has not been previously disclosed, began under the Biden administration, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the program.

But President Donald Trump and his CIA director, John Ratcliffe, have repeatedly promised more intense action against Mexican drug cartels. Increasing the drone flights was a quick initial step.

The CIA has not been authorized to use the drones to take lethal action, the officials said, adding that they do not envision using the drones to conduct airstrikes. For now, CIA officers in Mexico pass information collected by the drones to Mexican officials.

The flights go “well into sovereign Mexico,” one U.S. official said.

The Mexican government has taken steps to address the Trump administration’s concerns about fentanyl, deploying 10,000 troops to the border this month to thwart smuggling. But the Trump administration wants Mexico to do more to destroy or dismantle fentanyl labs and to seize more of the drug.

The drones have proved adept at identifying labs, according to people with knowledge of the program. Fentanyl labs emit chemicals that make them easy to find from the air.

During the Biden administration, however, the Mexican government was slow to take action against labs identified by the Americans, although it did use the information to make arrests, according to two of the officials.

The officials all spoke on the condition their names not be used so they could discuss a classified intelligence program and sensitive diplomacy between Mexico and the United States.

The surveillance flights have caused consternation in Mexico, which has long been wary of its northern neighbor after multiple U.S. invasions and land grabs.

When asked about the drone surveillance program during a news conference Tuesday morning, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico dismissed it as part of the country’s long-standing cooperation with U.S. forces.

“It’s part of this little campaign,” Sheinbaum said.

In addition to the CIA’s efforts, the U.S. military’s Northern Command is also expanding its surveillance of the border. But the U.S. military, unlike the spy agency, is not entering Mexican airspace.

Northern Command has conducted more than two dozen surveillance flights over the southern border using a variety of surveillance aircraft including U-2s, RC-135 Rivet Joints, P-8s and drones, said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

The military has also created a special intelligence task force of 140 analysts, located near the border, to analyze the information being collected by the surveillance flights and other sources, Northern Command said in a statement this month.

Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, the head of the Northern Command, told the Senate last week that analysts are providing intelligence that “gets after the cartel networks that drive the production and distribution of fentanyl and pushes it across the border.”

In response to questions from lawmakers, Guillot said the intelligence was shared with Mexican officials to help them “address the cartel violence in terms of sending more troops.” Guillot said his command had increased intelligence collection to make “rapid progress against this threat.”

Asked about Guillot’s comments, Sheinbaum said Mexican sovereignty was “not negotiable, and we will always coordinate without subordinating.”

Officials from the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon all declined to comment on the secret intelligence program.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 calling for a crackdown on major cartels. This week, his administration plans to designate a half-dozen cartels and criminal groups in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations.

The designation gives the U.S. government broad powers to impose economic sanctions on groups and entities linked to them. But the cartels are already under heavy sanctions by the U.S. government, and a foreign terrorist designation would provide no significant new tools to block their financial maneuvering, according to former U.S. officials who have worked on these issues.

While the sanctions are not necessary for the stepped-up intelligence collection by the CIA, several former officials said the designation was an important symbolic step that could, eventually, be followed by expanded operations by the U.S. military or intelligence agencies.

The U.S. military’s 7th Special Forces Group began a training exercise in Mexico this month. Maj. Russell Gordon, a spokesperson for the 1st Special Forces Command, said the training with the Mexican marine infantry was preplanned and part of “long-standing U.S.-Mexico defense cooperation.”

Still, former officials said they believe the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are likely to increase training with Mexican authorities in the coming months.

Conducting an airstrike on fentanyl labs would probably cause catastrophic fatalities, as they are often inside homes in urban areas, a person familiar with the program said, most likely contributing to the reluctance to authorize lethal force.

The possibility for violence also exists if the Mexican military or police move against the lab.

But the purpose of providing the intelligence to Mexican authorities is not to kill cartel members, but instead to disable the labs, according to U.S. officials briefed on the program.

If the cooperation and intelligence sharing do not lead to the destruction of the labs, the Trump administration has signaled it is considering alternative moves.

In a visit to the southwestern border this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not rule out conducting cross-border raids to pursue cartels inside Mexico.

“All options are on the table,” Hegseth told reporters.

In the transition to the new Trump administration, a former senior U.S. official said incoming aides had made clear that they planned to use the full U.S. counterterrorism apparatus – surveillance aircraft and satellites, intelligence analysts, as well as U.S. personnel or military contractors – to go after the cartels inside Mexico.

Sheinbaum has been grilled by reporters about the expanded military flights on the border, after they were detected Jan. 31.

Last week, Mexico’s defense secretary, Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, told reporters that the military had not received any request from the United States to fly in Mexican airspace and insisted that the surveillance flights had not violated international law as they flew above international waters.

Days later, as more surveillance flights were detected along the border, Sheinbaum said the flights were not new, suggesting that they took place under President Joe Biden, but did not elaborate. She said the flights were “part of the dialogue, the coordination, that we have.”

Trump has announced a former CIA paramilitary officer, Ronald Johnson, as his choice to serve as ambassador to Mexico. Former officials said they believed Johnson was tapped because of his experience working with both the spy agency and military Special Operations forces.

The president also announced this month that he would appoint Joe Kent, a former Army Green Beret and CIA paramilitary officer, as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.