Us Intel Backed Operation That Led To Killing Of Mexican Drug Lord

American spy agencies provided key intelligence that helped Mexican special forces locate and kill one of the country’s most notorious drug traffickers on Sunday, according to a one senior U.S. intelligence official and another person briefed on the matter.

Mexican officials said Monday that they were able to pin down the location of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, by following a confidant of one of Cervantes’ romantic partners. Mexican authorities had acknowledged support from U.S. intelligence on Sunday, but said it was only “complementary” in the takedown of the narcotrafficker known as “El Mencho.”

Neither person who spoke to POLITICO would describe the nature of the material shared with Mexico. But the senior official said that multiple U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies assisted in the hunt for Oseguera via a Pentagon-led task force, while the person familiar called out the contribution of the CIA in particular.

“CIA was instrumental in removing El Mencho,” said the person, who like the senior official, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

The White House, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Mexican Embassy did not respond to a request for comment on the U.S. intelligence support for the operation. The Defense Department and the CIA declined to comment.

U.S. involvement in the targeting of what is perhaps Mexico’s most powerful drug kingpin is the latest sign of how President Donald Trump has put counter-narcotics at the center of his administration’s foreign and national security policy.

The operation to take out Oseguera also comes as Trump has repeatedly threatened Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum that the U.S. will take direct military action in her country if her government does not do more to dismantle the cartels.

The raid this weekend appears to be a sign Sheinbaum is responding to the pressure.

After founding the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in 2009, Oseguera turned it into the leading Mexican trafficker of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, according to the State Department. The U.S. government put a $15 million dollar bounty on him in 2024, after it called his cartel one of the most violent in Mexico.

It bore out that reputation after Oseguera’s killing.

His death set off a wave of reprisal killings and other violent acts across Mexico on Monday, shuttering businesses, schools and airports across the country. On social media, Sheinbaum urged Mexicans to “remain informed and stay calm.”

The task force the senior official said provided intelligence support to the Mexicans was set up by the Pentagon just last month. Known as Joint Interagency Task Force Counter Cartel and operating under the military’s U.S. Northern Command, it includes representatives from U.S. law enforcement, intelligence community and Defense Department, according to the press release marking its founding.

The person briefed on the operation cast the CIA’s successful intelligence support as part of a broader shift at the agency under Director John Ratcliffe.

“Director Ratcliffe’s been focused on countering cartels since day one, and this is part of that broader strategy,” the person said.