Ex-Chihuahua AG Held on Treason Over CIA Drug Raid

César Jáuregui, Chihuahua’s former attorney general, sits tonight in the Altiplano federal prison, facing a treason charge linked to a CIA presence during an April drug-lab raid that Mexico’s government says it never authorized. If convicted, he faces five to 40 years behind bars. Two CIA agents and two Chihuahua state police officials died in a car accident after the operation. Their deaths sit at the center of a fight over who holds power—and who answers for it—when a state and a foreign intelligence agency work outside federal oversight.

Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) agents detained Jáuregui in Chihuahua city on Sunday night, just after he appeared in state court on separate charges filed by the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office: unlawful exercise of public office and conspiracy by public officials. He was first arrested on state and federal charges on Saturday. A judge ruled Sunday night that he didn’t need pretrial detention on the state charges. Federal agents then took him into custody on the treason charge, flew him to Toluca, México state, and transferred him to Altiplano on Monday morning. Jáuregui served as Chihuahua’s attorney general from January 2023 until he resigned in April 2026.

What Prosecutors Allege

The treason charge rests on the allegation that Jáuregui allowed CIA officers to join a raid led by Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency (AEI) without authorization from the Mexican government. Four CIA agents allegedly took part. After the operation, two of them and two state police officials, including the AEI’s head, died in a car accident in the municipality of Morelos, in the Sierra Tarahumara.

Federal Attorney General Ernestina Godoy called the April raid an “irregular operation” that amounted to “an attack on the federal pact and the separation of powers.” She said the Constitution and the National Security Law bar states from exercising powers reserved to the federal government or transferring governmental powers to foreign authorities. Jáuregui, she said, allegedly “allowed foreign nationals to operate without authorization on Mexican territory and to carry out activities reserved exclusively for federal forces.” She added that the investigation file, which includes information from the state attorney general’s own office, shows the foreigners’ participation “had no justification whatsoever.”

Godoy also said Jáuregui allegedly “concealed information” from federal authorities. “The State Attorney General’s Office, through its head, was required to inform the federal government [about the operation]. It did not do so,” she said.

Official Response

President Claudia Sheinbaum devoted her Monday morning press conference to the case. She said the Chihuahua government had no authority to “dismantle a [drug] laboratory”; the FGR does. Allowing foreign agents to join a ground operation against the law was “very irresponsible, to say the least,” she said, pointing out that Chihuahua officials and CIA agents traveled a dangerous, winding road at night after the raid. After lamenting the deaths, she said the officials were “violating the law because they didn’t inform [federal authorities] and ground operations by foreign agencies aren’t allowed.”

Sheinbaum placed most of the blame on Chihuahua authorities, while also accusing the U.S. government of interfering in Mexican affairs. The FGR investigation isn’t finished, she said, and authorities are examining Jáuregui’s involvement in “other matters.” She welcomed the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office prosecuting a former attorney general who, in her words, broke the law. As far as she knew, the FGR had no evidence connecting Governor Maru Campos to state authorities’ alleged authorization of CIA participation. “It’s up to the Federal Attorney General’s Office to clarify,” she said. Campos said in May that she hadn’t authorized or known about the CIA’s presence in the state.

Questions Still Open

The Los Angeles Times reported in April that the raid on the weekend of April 18 and 19 was “at least the third time this year that CIA operatives joined authorities in the northern border state of Chihuahua in an operation against a drug target.” That points to a pattern, not a single lapse. Guillermo Arturo Zuany Portillo, former head of the Strategic Operations division of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, is wanted in connection with the April raid but hasn’t been detained.

Why This Matters: Two Mexican state officials and two foreign agents are dead. A basic question of democratic accountability now hangs over the case: who authorizes armed operations on Mexican soil, and who answers when that chain of command breaks? Federal officials argue that the Constitution and National Security Law put those decisions in public, federal hands for a reason. Prosecuting a former top state law enforcement official signals that institutions can be tested against their own rules. Yet the unfinished FGR investigation, the unarrested Zuany Portillo and unanswered questions about earlier operations show how much remains unresolved. Those who serve in these operations, and the communities where they happen, bear the risk when oversight fails.