The Mexican government is pushing a “Tough on Cartels” propaganda operation through U.S. media outlets while simultaneously protecting some of the country’s top, currently active, cartel bosses. Breitbart Texas reported extensively on the Mexican government’s exaggerations and half-truths about enforcement actions. Breitbart articles highlighted Mexico’s continued protection of leaders like the Cartel Jalisco New Generation boss, “El Mencho.” The New York Times fell for this PR strategy in a recent article, claiming cartels are in fear.
Despite claims of being tough on cartels, Mexican authorities continue protecting top cartel bosses; one example is the current leader of Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, who is a personal friend of Mexico’s Secretary of Defense Ricardo Trevilla Trejo. As first reported by Cartel Chronicles Co-Founder Brandon Darby during Breitbart News Daily episode 715, in his military history, Trevilla Trejo was a Mexican Army General assigned to Michoacan, where he interacted with some of the top cartel bosses and befriended Oseguera and others.
Despite CJNG being one of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations, the country’s security apparatus has avoided directly clashing with its gunmen and has not gone after that organization’s top leadership. This is despite the U.S. government having repeatedly shared El Menchos locations and hideouts in Jalisco, Colima, and Guanajuato.
In a similar fashion, despite the raging turf war between the Chapitos and Mayos factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s security apparatus has avoided going after the leaders of those factions even though U.S. intelligence had located the leader of Los Mayos in Baja California and most recently in Durango. The U.S. also reported on the location of the leadership of Los Chapitos in various rural communities in Sinaloa.
The Government of Mexico is pushing a propaganda operation in the U.S. media markets. For example, the New York Times falsely claimed that Mexican drug cartels are in fear over the recent terrorist designation by the Trump Administration. In reality, the story is part of a propaganda strategy pushed by Mexico’s government aimed at avoiding tariffs and other punitive measures that would severely hamper the country’s economy for their role in protecting those very drug cartels.
In a “news story” titled “Trump Threats and Mexico’s Crackdown Hit Mexican Cartel,” the New York Times claimed to have talked to six members of the Sinaloa Cartel who claimed that, for the first time, they are in fear and have begun taking steps to protect their families and have shut down their fentanyl labs.
The story, which is based almost entirely on unnamed cartel sources, further claims that Mexico’s unsuccessful deployment of more than 10,000 National Guard troops to the border and last week’s transfer of 29 prisoners is “a clear signal to the Trump administration that Mexico was eager to fight the cartels.”
The Times appears to have fallen for a PR strategy pushed by Mexico’s government, which was previously reported on by Breitbart Texas last month. The PR strategy is aimed at appeasing the Trump administration after the White House accused Mexico of being a narco-state where its political elite protected drug cartels. At the time of those comments, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs and other punitive measures. Soon after, he gave them a 30-day period to clean up their act.
One of the first steps taken by Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum was to announce the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border to stop cartel violence and drug trade. Historically, Mexico’s NG has been harshly criticized for its poor results and for actively avoiding cartel clashes, following the strategy of “Hugs not Bullets” started by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
In recent months, Mexico has been embellishing its arrests and operations as a way to claim that they were fighting the very cartels it protected for years — the cartels that helped get the current ruling party elected to power.
All of Mexico’s security operations are led by the country’s Public Security Secretary, Omar Garcia Harfuch, who has also taken over the media strategy for the country’s security apparatus. As Breitbart Texas reported, Harfuch has been exaggerating the rank of captured mid-level cartel members to make them seem like top-tier operators. Additionally, he claimed that his security forces have been seizing a large number of armored vehicles when, in fact, they have collected the abandoned vehicles after rival cartel armies clashed in bloody combat.
In their story, the Times failed to point out that the closing of fentanyl labs in Sinaloa is linked to a raging turf war between rival cartel factions, mainly the Chapitos and the Mayos. Both of these factions share a history of receiving government protection.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with the Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
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