US Federal Agents Flew a Secret Spy Plane to Hunt Drug Cartel Leaders in Mexico Peter Aldhous and Karla Zabludovsky - BuzzFeed News
August 4, 2017

Circling by a US Marshals plane near Eldorado, Sinaloa, on April 28 and May 1 (Peter Aldhous/BuzzFeed News)

At 7:50 a.m. on May 1, Mexican marines stopped a vehicle carrying a key player in the bloody war for control of the Sinaloa drug cartel. David López was the chief bodyguard of Dámaso “El Licenciado” López, formerly the right-hand man of the cartel’s then-leader, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Shortly afterward, while being transported to a federal prosecutor’s office, the bodyguard collapsed and died. His boss was detained in Mexico City the following day.

But the official account of the bodyguard’s capture in Eldorado, Sinaloa, provided to BuzzFeed News by Mexican authorities under a freedom of information request, omitted an important detail. On April 28, and again on the morning of the capture, a small Cessna plane circled above Eldorado, a city of fewer than 25,000 people.

The aircraft was operated by the US Marshals Service, and is part of a small fleet of spy planes used to hunt fugitives, in part by tracking their cell phones.

The US has spent about $2.5 billion to help Mexico fight organized crime since 2008. But the Mexican Constitution places limits on the involvement of foreign agents in domestic law enforcement. And when it comes to capturing the most wanted drug lords, the government likes to congratulate itself for its solo efforts.

US involvement in the Mexican government’s policy of “decapitation” — using elite military units to capture or kill cartel kingpins — is controversial in both countries. Arguably, the strategy is escalating Mexico’s drug wars, as rival factions fight for turf each time a leader is removed. Critics of President Enrique Peña Nieto blame his security policies for an alarming surge in violence: June was the deadliest month in 20 years.

Press reports, based on anonymous sources, have suggested that the US Marshals are more deeply entwined in the Mexican military’s counter-drug operations than the agency has acknowledged. But definitive evidence of the Marshals’ involvement in these operations has been hard to obtain.

... The Mexican government did not respond to specific questions but said that it conducts all security operations in accordance with the law. The US Marshals declined to comment on its involvement in the bodyguard’s capture.

Read the rest at BuzzFeed News

Related: Mexico's Cartels Find Another Game Changer in Fentanyl (Stratfor)

Related: U.S. Heroin Trade Rooted in Mexico’s ‘Corridor of Death’ (WSJ.com)

Related: Mexico Seizes 140 Litres of Morphine Used to Make Heroin (News24)

Related: Here's Why Drug Lord El Chapo's Legal Team Thinks His Case Should Be Dismissed (Complex)

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