The news emerging from Mexico on August 24, 2012, sounded more like a spy thriller than the usual reports of shootings, body dumps, and decapitations. Initial reports were foggy, but it was sounding more and more like two Americans assigned to the US Embassy had been ambushed by criminals while on their way to a Mexican naval training base. As more details started trickling in, the scenario became more and more disturbing; the two wounded Embassy employees, according to published reports in Mexico, may have been CIA agents on a joint counterdrug mission, and their attackers were Mexican federal police officers. The CIA has not commented on the matter.
Making matters worse is the fact that the agents, along with a Mexican naval officer, were unarmed and traveling in a heavily armored SUV clearly bearing diplomatic license platessomething that was impossible for the attackers to miss. Mexican government officials claim it was an accident and a case of mistaken identity, as the 12 officers involved were supposedly in the area hunting down kidnappers. Yet, they were all wearing civilian clothes, according to a Mexican military officials accounts to CNN, and traveling in different unmarked cars. They were also likely not carrying their standard-issue weapons; some Mexican media outlets indicated AK-47 shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting.
Several journalists from both Mexican and American news outlets have interviewed witnesses and residents in the small town where this occurred just north of Cuernavaca, and they all said the same thing: alleging that federal police in that area are working with the cartels. Some witnesses also said that the CIA agents traveled that road frequently, and people had become used to seeing armored vehicles with the diplomatic plates, making the case of mistaken identity harder to swallow. Its becoming harder and harder to argue that the agents werent specifically targeted by a criminal group in the area, perhaps not to kill them outright, but to send a very strong message. But why would Mexican drug traffickers violate an old unspoken rule about avoiding confrontations with US agents because of the negative consequences they tend to bring? History tells us this wouldnt be the first time this has happened, or even the second.
In March 2010, Drug Administration Agent (DEA) Special Agent Joe DuBois told the Houston Chronicle the following disturbing account. During a November 1999 afternoon, he and FBI Special Agent Daniel Fuentes were driving through the northeast Mexican city of Matamoros in a white Ford Bronco bearing diplomatic license plates. In the back of the Bronco was an informant; a Mexican reporter who was showing the agents various cartel members homes in the area, as well as stash houses where illegal drugs were kept prior to being smuggled into the US. One of those homes belonged to the notorious Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, head of the Gulf cartel at the time.
Shortly after the three men drove by, they picked up a tail, were boxed in and forced to stop. Cárdenas himself emerged from one of the vehicles and approached the Bronco. He demanded that the agents surrender and turn over the informant, and the agents refused after Fuentes clearly identified himself as FBI. Cárdenas also clearly indicated he didnt care who the agents were. After DuBois calmly explained at length what the consequences would be if he and Fuentes were killedreferring to the full might of US law enforcementCárdenas gave the order to his men to lower their weapons.
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