Sheinbaum demands info on US embassy staffers killed in car crash

MEXICO CITY (CN) — In her Monday press conference, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she was unaware that the U.S. embassy officials who died in a car accident following an operation to dismantle a drug lab were operating in Chihuahua.

“We were not aware that there was direct work between the state of Chihuahua and staff of the U.S. embassy in Mexico. We are asking for all the information from the government of Chihuahua and the government of the United States in reviewing if there is a violation of the national security law, because it is important,” Sheinbaum said.

On Sunday, two members of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency — Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes and Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes — and two unnamed U.S. embassy officials died in a car accident in the remote, mountainous municipality of Morelos, Chihuahua, following a reported drug lab bust.

In July 2025, Mexico’s Senate reformed the National Security Law to include a framework of coordination between security agencies to dismantle organized crime.

Alberto Guerrero Baena, a security policy, law enforcement and social movement consultant, said Sheinbaum’s handling of the security situation during her term, exemplified by this latest incident, shows what he calls an institutional schizophrenia.

“There have always been covert operations here for a long time — from the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s to the present day,” said Guerrero Baena. “The Sheinbaum administration will always deny there are foreign operations because of their ideological and political perspective.

“There cannot be joint or foreign operations according to what Mexican law establishes. And if there is a presence of foreign agents in the territory, according to the protocols, it must be authorized through a notification from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explicit authorization from the federal executive power and the Senate of the Republic. So there is a double discourse happening,” he said.

Guerrero Baena added the situation contradicts Sheinbaum’s security narrative because doing so would go against her party’s own ideology and discourse.

“A kind of ambiguity about what really happened will remain, if there really was an operation to uncover a lab, because historically there was a denial that there were any chemical labs in Mexico, which is disproven by everything that’s happened during this six-year term,” he said. “In the end, the deaths in the mountains are the consequence of a state that hasn’t had the courage to formalize agreements and security strategies that, clearly within the sovereignist discourse, violate the law, so from an operational perspective, they do it under the table.”

Chihuahua State Attorney General César Jáuregui Moreno announced in a press conference Sunday that, in an operation with the Secretary of National Defense, the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency destroyed a major clandestine drug lab in the area on Friday and Saturday.

“It’s a very large laboratory, perhaps one of the biggest uncovering ever made by the authorities in the country’s history,” he said.

Later that day, the Chihuahua State Attorney General’s Office announced the four deaths in a press conference, which included the two investigating officers of the U.S. Embassy.

“We extend our deepest condolences and prayers for the families of those who died in this tragic accident,” he said Sunday.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson also expressed his condolences Sunday on social media.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of two U.S. embassy personnel, the director of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency (AEI), and an AEI officer in this accident. We honor their dedication and tireless efforts to confront one of the greatest challenges of our time. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their loved ones,” he wrote on X.