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Mexican authorities have arrested César Jáuregui, the former attorney general of Chihuahua state, over allegations that he allowed US agents to participate in a drug-lab raid without authorization from the federal government, according to CNN.
Gilberto Loya Chávez, acting head of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, said in a video message that Jáuregui is being investigated for unlawful exercise of public service and conspiracy by public officials. Jáuregui is due to appear before a judge, Loya Chávez said, without giving a date.
The arrest followed an investigation into alleged misconduct during an April operation in which state officials dismantled a clandestine drug-manufacturing laboratory, Loya Chávez said.
The CIA’s involvement came to light after a car crash on April 19, when four people returning from the raid in northern Chihuahua were killed. Jáuregui, then the state attorney general, said the dead were two Mexican law enforcement officials and two Americans he described as instructors from the US Embassy in Mexico City.
Days later, CNN and other media outlets reported that the two Americans were CIA agents, not embassy employees. CNN reported that the agency had significantly expanded its clandestine anti-cartel operations in Mexico during US President Donald Trump’s second term, including the killing of alleged cartel members and drone flights over Mexican territory.
On Saturday, Loya Chávez said the investigation was not about the drug raid itself, but about US officials’ participation outside the limits of Mexican law.
“This action does not disregard the work of the State Investigation Agency, the State Attorney General’s Office, or the Armed Forces in dismantling the clandestine laboratory, because it is of course a very significant result in the fight against organized crime,” Loya Chávez said. “What is being investigated is the way this operation was conducted, the failure to observe the chain of command and the applicable protocols.”
“A good result does not justify breaking the law,” he added.
On May 27, people displayed signs reading “I want peace, not drug traffickers” as Jáuregui attended Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office to be questioned about the deaths of the two CIA agents in Ciudad Juarez.
CNN said it had contacted Jáuregui’s office to ask whether he had legal representation and whether he had entered a plea.
The presence of CIA agents in the operation angered the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum. Her administration criticized Chihuahua authorities for failing to give prior notice and coordinate with federal counterparts, as Mexican law requires. Sheinbaum has said the circumstances needed to be investigated to determine whether a crime had been committed.
She said at the time that her office had not known that Chihuahua state officials and the US government were cooperating independently.
“The relationship is federal, not state,” Sheinbaum said. “They must have authorization from the federal government for this collaboration, which necessarily takes place at the state level, as established by the Constitution.”
Chihuahua Governor María Eugenia Campos subsequently ordered the creation of a unit to investigate the case.
On April 27, special prosecutor Wendy Chávez said there were indications that the director of Chihuahua’s state security agency, who died in the crash, had “possible unofficial collaboration” with the US agents and had not informed his superiors they would take part in the operation.
Jáuregui resigned as attorney general that day, saying he was accepting “political responsibility” for the tensions caused by the case.
“There were omissions both in the information provided and in the institutional handling of the points of contact with these individuals,” he said.
Before his arrest on Saturday, Jáuregui had been seeking the conservative National Action Party’s nomination for mayor of Chihuahua, the state capital.
