“We can’t rule out [espionage] because we don’t know what they did.”
With those words, Mexico’s Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla Trejo responded to a reporter’s question about whether United States military aircraft had engaged in “espionage” missions near and south of the U.S.-Mexico border to surveil and collect intelligence on Mexican drug cartels.
“They didn’t violate national air space,” added the top military brass at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Tuesday morning press conference.
The questioning of the defense minister came a day after CNN reported that the U.S. military “significantly increased its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels over the past two weeks, with sophisticated spy planes flying at least 18 missions over the southwestern U.S. and in international airspace around the Baja peninsula.”
The news organization said that its reporting was based on “open-source data and three U.S. officials familiar with the missions.”
Trevilla said that Mexican authorities had “located” two of the missions CNN referred to, including a Feb. 3 flight detected “83 km to the southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, outside Mexican airspace over international waters,” according to the Defense Ministry.
Sheinbaum said last week that it was “not something strange that there is a plane that flies in international airspace,” even when the aircraft is a United States military one in close proximity to Mexican territory a significant distance south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
However, the frequency with which the U.S. military has recently used spy planes to surveil areas close to Mexican territory is far from normal, according to CNN.
‘A dramatic escalation in activity’
CNN reported that the U.S. military spy plane missions — many of which flew close to the U.S.-Mexico border — were conducted over a period of 10 days in late January and early February.
Citing current and former U.S. military officials, the news outlet said that the flights represent “a dramatic escalation in activity” near Mexican territory.
The Pentagon has sent at least 18 surveillance flights of sophisticated spy planes to the Mexican border to collect intelligence on Mexican cartels, according to open source data and three U.S. officials. https://t.co/OoGFPzon43 pic.twitter.com/Bv7VFg6p3w
— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) February 11, 2025
They come at a time when United States President Donald Trump is using the military to secure the border as he seeks to stem the flow of narcotics, especially fentanyl, into the U.S. from Mexico.
Citing a former military official “with deep experience in homeland defense,” CNN reported that the Pentagon “has historically flown only about one surveillance mission a month around the U.S.-Mexico border.”
“Typically, officials instead focus these planes on collecting intelligence on other priorities, such as Russian activity in Ukraine or hunting Russian or Chinese submarines. The activity highlights how the military has already begun shifting finite U.S. national security capabilities away from overseas threats to focus on the southern border, where Trump has declared a national emergency,” CNN said.
The types of spy planes used to carry out the recent U.S. military missions, including Boeing P-8 Poseidons, a Lockheed U-2 and a Boeing RC-135, are “capable of collecting intelligence deep within Mexico” while flying over U.S. airspace along the border, according to CNN’s sources.
Trevilla said there are agreements between the armed forces of Mexico and the United States to share such information.
“In any case, they would give it to us,” the defense minister said.
“I just had … telephone communication with the [United States] Northern Command … during which we established that we’re going to continue adhering to the bilateral mechanisms that exist between the armed forces of both countries,” Trevilla said.
The U.S. government appears determined to do all it can to combat Mexican cartels, which engage in a wide range of criminal activities including drug trafficking and people smuggling across the Mexico-U.S. border. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order that laid the groundwork to declare cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, while the U.S. government announced last week that it intended “to pursue total elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations.”
In the Oval Office on Jan. 20, Trump said that the use of the U.S. military against Mexican cartels in Mexico “could happen,” while he declared last year that military strikes on cartel targets in Mexico were “absolutely” an option.
CNN reported that the “ramp-up” in spy plane flights near Mexican territory “underscores Trump’s determination to wield the military as the lead agency tackling counternarcotics and border security — two issues that have historically been led by domestic law enforcement agencies.”
“… Some current and former U.S. officials expressed quiet concerns to CNN that the intelligence flights could be part of an effort to find targets for the U.S. military to strike itself,” the media outlet added.
Citing a United States Department of Justice source, the El Universal newspaper said that the flights were “related to information provided by Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and Ovidio and Joaquín Guzmán, aka Los Chapitos,” all alleged Sinaloa Cartel leaders who are in U.S. custody on drug trafficking charges.
Report: Mexico expects a further escalation of US ‘actions’ at the border
El Universal reported on Wednesday that it had access to a “high-level federal government analysis” that predicts an “escalation” of actions from the United States on the 3,145-kilometer long border it shares with Mexico.
“After the increase in United States spy flights in international waters to surveil Mexican drug cartels, the federal government anticipates an escalation of intelligence and military actions from the northern neighbor on the border with Mexico,” El Universal said.
The government analysis, the newspaper said, states that “the intensification of these United States border operations will serve to pressure the Mexican government to accept security concessions.”
El Universal didn’t say what those “security concessions” might be.
Sheinbaum says that the Mexican government is willing to collaborate with the United States on security issues but she is opposed to the use of the U.S. military to combat Mexican cartels on Mexican soil.
“We all want to combat drug cartels, that is clear. So what do we have to do? We have to coordinate efforts and collaborate — them in their territory and us in our territory,” she said last month.
An unsolicited military intervention in Mexico by the United States would no doubt infuriate the Mexican government and place an enormous strain on the bilateral relation. But, as Trump put it, “stranger things have happened.”
According to national security academic Víctor Hernández, “the United States government is preparing a low-scale military intervention in Mexico, with special forces and drone attacks.”
“Any military operation of this nature requires reconnaissance flights, like those we are seeing,” he told El Universal.
Carlos Pérez Ricart, an academic who specializes in security issues and author of the book “One Hundred Years of Spies and Drugs: The History of US Anti-Narcotics Agents in Mexico,” told the newspaper El País in December that he “would not be surprised to wake up one day to an American missile hitting a methamphetamine laboratory in Badiraguato,” Sinaloa, the home town of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“It could happen [but] there is nothing to suggest that a more aggressive, direct, and invasive policy will lead to a decrease in fentanyl trafficking to the United States,” he said.
With reports from CNN and El Universal
As long as there’s druggies in the USA there will always be drugs going there. Use to be marijuana from Colombia, Black Tar Heroin from Mexico, Methamphetamine from Canada and Mexico, now Fentanyl…what else is new. Back in the day druggies were locked up, now they are praised and live on the streets. Nothing will never change until people in the USA stop demanding drugs and don’t give a crap about their life.
Your so right
🍿🍿🍺🍺
US lost the “War on Drugs” decades ago. Still on just to avoid accountability for US inaction to reduce the demand. Lotsa $ for jobs, helicopters, and contractors (that donate serious $ to politicians to maintain the status quo).
U.S. has no intention of dealing with its addicts. So much easier to blame other countries.
These planes are there to gather as much information as possible on the Cartels. CARTELS can’t hide so just let them do their job. Don’t worry about the planes. All Mexican citizens knows that the Mexican government and Sheinbaum doesn’t have the “know how” nor the ability to deal with the Cartels. who can “overpower the government any time the Carels want too. That is a “TRUE FACT”. The PEOPLE IN THE US don’t demand drugs. It’s the Cartels that need to “peddle drugs” to exist.
So lost so bewildered so tipical of the uninformed, you head is not in the sand it’s up your —!
You’re not wrong. The problem is people dislike Trump so much, they blame addicts. They fail to accept the facts. The cartels are responsible for human sex trafficking, extortion rackets, political corruption, smuggling guns into Mexico, murder, kidnapping, smuggling immigrants out of Mexico, corrupting legitimate businesses for money laundering, drive citizens from their homes & communities, the list goes on and on. Many of these people have never spent anytime working with or experienced addiction and ignorantly find it easier to blame the victim. Many addicts suffer from mental health issues and have no coverage for professional care.
When a business produces a product that harms people, i.e. Boar’s Head meats, the government goes after the business for producing harmful products. They don’t go after the people dying from food poisoning, or of high blood pressure, high cholesterol or obesity from eating the highly processed “food” the company makes. Same with the pharmaceutical companies that got doctors to prescribe massive amounts of opiates. The government goes after the businesses, not the victims who got hooked on the legal poison. Big tobacco, same thing – push a poisonous product, go after the companies, not the smokers. How about alcohol. There are more alcoholics than drug addicts, just because the drug of choice is legal, the addiction is the same.
Yes, the US is severely lacking in care and treatment for mental illness and addiction. While I don’t agree with Trump and his cronies, or their policies, or their approach to accomplishing those policies – I do still thank God that I was born in America and was able to bust my ass allowing me to enjoy all that comes with “the American dream”, and looking at the numbers of people around the world who want to settle in America, both legally and illegally, millions of people agree.
There aren’t any of my Mexican friends who can have 2 homes in different countries. They will never know the luxury of the free speech allowing all the bitching about all their native country does wrong while comfortably living in another country. When their politicians are corrupt or doing things they disagree with, heading to another country isn’t an option, like it is for most of us on this site.
The issue of the cartels in Mexico is complex. Until AMLO, the US military always had a presence in Mexico. What the US is doing as far as reconnaissance, is legal. They haven’t violated Mexican airspace. It’s no different from what they do over Iran, Russia, and anywhere else the US wants to monitor in an effort to protect itself and it’s citizens. It’s also the same thing those countries do to the US.
It would be great if being simple minded and blaming addicts would solve the cartel problem. Unfortunately, drugs aren’t their only business. They have at least a dozen other ways to continue profiting, even if every addict in the US were cured or heaven forbid, locked up. There are other countries with massive cocaine, meth, and club drug addictions.
There have been polls, quoted in the article, stating that over 46% of Mexican citizens approve of US collaboration in dealing with the cartels. The cartels are also heavily involved in State politics, corrupting the politicians and police force. These are FACTS. It’s also fact that AMLO did nothing to curtail cartel activity, publicly stating that Moreno would not go after the cartels. It’s also clear that Sheinbaum isn’t seriously positioning herself as going tough against the cartels either. Trump gave everyone plenty of notice what his plans were, and now everyone acts surprised when he is following through. Unfortunately, this is the course the US plans to stay on for the next 4 years. I hope Sheinbaum has a better plan to address the issue than what she has done so far.
Trump is bat shit crazy and I have no doubt he is deranged enough, and has surrounded himself with enough loyal ass kissing morons, not to mention stacked both Houses and the Supreme Court in his favor to follow through with exactly what he has said he would do. Ignorantly blaming addicts for the current state because you dislike the current US President, won’t solve anything. Blame the man behind the movement and blame the criminal enterprises that are causing the problem. But remain objective and hold the Mexican government accountable for their role as well. There’s plenty of blame to go around. 🤙✌️&❤️