Mexican authorities have arrested César Jáuregui, the former attorney general of Chihuahua state, over allegations that he allowed US intelligence officers to take part in a raid on a clandestine drug laboratory without the authorisation Mexican law requires.
Gilberto Loya Chávez, acting head of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, said in a video message that Jáuregui is under investigation for unlawful exercise of public service and conspiracy by public officials, CNN reported. Jáuregui is due to appear before a judge, but Loya Chávez did not say when.
The arrest followed a finding by the Attorney General’s Office that there had been misconduct in an April operation in which state officials dismantled a clandestine drug-manufacturing laboratory in a mountainous area near Guachochi, Chihuahua.
The raid was not the problem — the chain of command was
Loya Chávez was careful to separate the two, and the distinction is the heart of the case.
“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,” he said. “What is being investigated is the way this operation was conducted, the failure to observe the chain of command and the applicable protocols.”
In other words: the state does not dispute that a drug lab was destroyed. What it alleges is that foreign officers were present at a Mexican law-enforcement operation without federal clearance.
How the CIA’s involvement surfaced
The participation of US intelligence officers became public through a fatal accident rather than a disclosure.
On 19 April, while still attorney general, Jáuregui himself announced that four people had died in a car crash while returning from a drug raid in northern Chihuahua — two Mexican law enforcement officials and two Americans, whom he identified at the time as instructors from the US Embassy in Mexico City.
Days later, CNN and other outlets reported that the two Americans were not embassy staff but CIA agents. CNN notes the agency has significantly expanded its clandestine anti-cartel operations in Mexico during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Jáuregui’s own April statement, describing the dead Americans as embassy instructors, is therefore the specific act that connects him to the charge now being investigated.
A federal government that was not told
The presence of CIA agents angered the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, which criticised Chihuahua authorities for failing to give prior notice to, or coordinate with, their federal counterparts as Mexican law requires. Sheinbaum said her office had not known that state officials in Chihuahua and the US government were collaborating independently.
“The relationship is federal, not state,” she 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 ordered a unit created to investigate. On 27 April, in her first report, special prosecutor Wendy Chávez said there were indications that the director of Chihuahua’s state security agency — who died in the car crash — had been in “possible unofficial collaboration” with the US agents and had not informed his superiors that they would take part.
Jáuregui resigned as attorney general that same day, saying he accepted “political responsibility” for the tensions the matter had caused. He was questioned at the Federal Attorney General’s Office in Ciudad Juárez on 27 May. The arrest comes roughly six months after the crash that exposed the operation.
A note on what the charges are, and are not
Both verified sources state the same two grounds of investigation: unlawful exercise of public service and conspiracy by public officials.
Some other reporting on Saturday characterised the case in graver terms, raising the possibility of a national-security offence. CNN’s account does not use that characterisation, and this desk could not verify it against any source on its verified list, so it is not reported here as part of the case. The charges stand as the Chihuahua prosecutor’s office stated them.
Not reported
Neither source says whether Jáuregui has legal representation or has entered a plea — CNN says it contacted his office to ask and had not received an answer. Neither gives a date for his court appearance.
Nothing states how many US officers were present at the April raid, what they did there, or whether any US agency has been asked to account for their presence. There is no comment from the CIA, the US Embassy in Mexico City or the US government in either filing, and no indication whether any other Chihuahua official faces arrest.
Hiru’s filing, which cites CNN, places the arrest in the same terms but does not name the laboratory’s location or carry the Sheinbaum, Campos or Wendy Chávez material.
