Documents obtained by ProPublica reveal that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempted to penetrate Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s campaign organization before the 2012 Mexican presidential election, despite knowing it could spark a political controversy.
The DEA investigation, which began in the summer of 2010, focused primarily on López Obrador, who was then the leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the front-runner in the presidential race.
The agency’s goal was to gather evidence to potentially indict López Obrador and his staff members for their alleged involvement in cartel donations. However, the investigation was shut down by senior Justice Department officials in late 2011 due to political pressure surrounding another failed undercover operation, known as “Fast and Furious.” Despite this, allegations of drug ties to López Obrador’s political apparatus continued to surface over the years following his election as president of Mexico.
The disclosure of the DEA’s investigation into alleged drug money ties to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2006 presidential campaign has sparked controversy and raised questions about how the US should deal with evidence of high-level corruption in an allied government. According to ProPublica, the DEA had been investigating claims that traffickers funneled $2 million into López Obrador’s campaign, which he lost in 2006 before being elected president in 2018. The investigation was halted without ever developing direct proof that López Obrador himself approved or knew of the reported donations.
López Obrador has denied any involvement with drug money and launched a tirade against the DEA and ProPublica, claiming that they are trying to discredit him. His spokesperson said he would not respond to questions about “false allegations” related to the campaign. Instead, López Obrador demanded answers from ProPublica about their sources and motives in reporting on the investigation.
Biden administration officials have sought to calm tensions with López Obrador, who is crucial for holding back the flow of migrants trying to reach the US-Mexico border. They emphasized that the DEA investigation was closed and López Obrador is no longer under investigation. However, the revelations have again raised questions about how the US should deal with evidence of high-level corruption in an allied government.
The documents obtained by ProPublica shed light on the complexities of the case, which began with allegations that traffickers had funneled money into López Obrador’s campaign. Although US agents corroborated the account with at least five sources, they never developed firsthand confirmation that López Obrador approved or knew of the reported donations.
The DEA’s investigation was initially led by Roberto López Nájera, a young Acapulco lawyer who worked for notorious drug boss Edgar Valdez Villareal, known as “La Barbie.” The alliance between La Barbie’s gang and the Sinaloa Cartel was fluid enough that gang leaders would sometimes gather their gunmen for meet-and-greets to avoid accidentally shooting each other.
López Nájera eventually turned on La Barbie and sought refuge at the US Embassy in Mexico City, where he offered his help to the DEA. He was placed under protective custody in the United States and became a key informant, undergoing numerous debriefings and writing accounts of his experiences with drug traffickers. Despite his role as a bribe-recipient, it took the DEA almost two years to investigate López Nájera’s claims about a January 2006 meeting between La Barbie, his lieutenants, and representatives from then-presidential candidate López Obrador’s campaign.
According to López Nájera, the meeting at a hotel in Nuevo Vallarta ended with an agreement: La Barbie would receive official protection if López Obrador won the election, including influence over police commander appointments and the federal attorney general position. The DEA worked with López Nájera to set up meetings with Mauricio Soto Caballero, a member of López Obrador’s campaign team who delivered La Barbie’s donations in 2006.
Soto was arrested in McAllen, Texas, after meeting with undercover DEA agents on October 21, 2010. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic cocaine and agreed to help investigators pursue others involved in the traffickers’ contributions to López Obrador’s campaign.
The DEA submitted a request to use Soto as an undercover source, seeking authorization to plant him inside López Obrador’s second presidential campaign in 2012. The aim was to develop evidence against López Obrador himself. One document stated that without a confidential source like Soto, it would be impossible to identify the extent of corruption within the presidential campaign. Soto would have direct access to information about drug cartel donations to the campaign.
The ultimate goal of the investigation was to target Andrés Manuel López Obrador directly.
A list of other campaign staff members whom the agents intended to examine was included in a separate document, which named two former bodyguards from López Obrador’s 2006 campaign and Audomaro Martínez, the one-star army general who headed the security team at the time. Martínez is now the head of Mexico’s state intelligence agency.
According to several current and former officials familiar with the case, the agents had different criteria for choosing their targets for scrutiny. Silvio Hernández Soto, a former bodyguard, was introduced to López Nájera as someone who could help with his cocaine-smuggling efforts. Martínez, who supervised the bodyguards, was viewed as a gatekeeper to the candidate but does not appear to have been implicated in any criminal activity.
The agents’ first focus of attention was Mauricio Soto’s friend and former boss on the 2006 campaign, Nicolás Mollinedo Bastar, who remained one of López Obrador’s closest aides. Mollinedo had served as the campaign’s logistics chief, responsible for setting up rallies and other events around the country. In an interview, Mollinedo denied that he or the campaign ever took drug money.
Soto told U.S. investigators that during the 2006 race, he and other campaign workers would be approached by “unidentified individuals” offering cash or high-value items. It was understood that these individuals represented local drug cartels and requested security for their organization to traffic narcotics to the United States. Although at first Mollinedo directed his subordinates not to accept these offers, Soto was instructed to maintain a relationship with them in case they needed anything in the future.
Soto said he discussed the Sinaloa contributions only with Mollinedo, who authorized him to receive the illicit funds and other support. The agents suspected that López Obrador could not have been unaware of such a large donation but Soto did not know if the candidate had discussed the money with Mollinedo or the two businessmen who claimed to represent his campaign at a meeting in Nuevo Vallarta.
López Nájera told investigators he was introduced to López Obrador during a 2006 campaign stop in Coahuila, where the candidate spoke to a huge crowd assembled with financial help from La Barbie. López Nájera said he called La Barbie and handed his cellphone to López Obrador, who then thanked the trafficker for his donations. However, officials familiar with the case treated this claim skeptically, stating that even if López Obrador knew who was on the phone, whatever López Nájera thought he heard of the conversation would be hearsay.
(López Obrador has said he would resign the presidency immediately if anyone could prove he spoke to La Barbie.)
Although the DEA’s target list was ambitious and sensitive, officials assumed from the start that senior policy officials in the Justice Department and other agencies would set the limits of such an investigation. A former senior DEA official who oversaw the matter stated, “We were going to try to collect as much information as we could. You knew it was going to be a long road because of the political ramifications. And it was not surprising to us that they basically pulled the plug.”
The investigators faced a deadline: federal prosecutors believed the statute of limitations on drug- conspiracy crimes related to López Obrador’s first race would run five years from the day of the vote, July 2, 2006. By early 2011, the investigators had only months left to bring charges based on the earlier campaign.
Soto attended weekly meetings in Mexico City with López Obrador and his team while working secretly with U.S. agents. Soto remained close to Mollinedo, who was constantly at López Obrador’s side. Once approved as an undercover source, the agents focused on Mollinedo, hoping to confirm his role in accepting 2006 donations.
The agents gave Soto a concealed recording device and sent him off to surreptitiously record a chat at López Obrador’s political headquarters on April 8, 2011. The results were disappointing: the recording was partly unintelligible, and Soto shut off the device – possibly accidentally or deliberately.
A two-page summary of the conversation states that Soto told Mollinedo he was concerned about Mexican authorities arresting La Barbie and Sergio Villarreal Barragán. Soto also expressed worry about Jennifer, a government witness in “Operation Clean-up,” who was making headlines for being López Nájera’s identity. Mollinedo cut short the conversation to meet his wife and daughter, during which he mostly talked about his mistress. Soto offered him a ride, but they discussed little of substance during the drive.
The document adds that the CS advised investigators that he/she was unable to specifically discuss the money payments during the 2006 campaign because the CS and MOLLINEDO were never able to speak in private at the office. A month later, the agents tried again and had a second recorded conversation on May 9 which focused partly on Marco Antonio Mejía, a former bodyguard from López Obrador’s 2006 campaign who was making statements to prosecutors after being arrested on corruption charges while running a prison in Cancún.
Soto introduced Mejía to López Nájera as a potentially useful contact for the traffickers and worried aloud that López Nájera and Mejía could turn against them. Mollinedo had already obtained a copy of Mejía’s confidential court file with statements from various witnesses and expressed concerns about the prosecutors’ file, stating that it was “just vague things” but probably contained information about them.
The conversation included references to money delivered (presumably to the campaign) and a mention of the man who introduced Soto to López Nájera, presumably to arrange delivery of the traffickers’ donations. DEA agents viewed the transcript as proof that Mollinedo was aware of La Barbie’s donations in 2006 and who had delivered them.
Despite this, Mollinedo did not make explicit statements about the traffickers’ donations or his responsibility for them, which left prosecutors with thin evidence. A former Justice Department official noted that a good criminal defense lawyer could potentially tear apart such evidence in court.
As the statute of limitations deadline approached, the agents decided to set up a sting operation using Soto to introduce Mollinedo to an undercover operative, offering a large donation and promising tolerance for future trafficking activities if Mollinedo accepted. The goal was to pressure him into cooperating against others, including possibly López Obrador.
During the investigation, documents show that Joseph Evans, the DEA chief in Mexico, briefed senior US diplomats on the progress of the case. However, Evans declined to comment on the matter. Meanwhile, tensions were running high at the US Embassy in Mexico due to conflicts between Ambassador Carlos Pascual and the Mexican government, which escalated following the release of secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. The cables had criticized Mexico’s counterdrug efforts.
The investigation was sensitive, as it involved an undercover operation inside Mexico, which required informing the Mexican government under a 1998 agreement on law enforcement cooperation. The plan was reviewed by a panel of DEA and Justice Department officials, known as the Sensitive Activity Review Committee, due to concerns about what information would be shared with the Mexicans.
DEA officials believed that official corruption was a major obstacle to Mexico’s success in combating drug traffickers. They suggested discussing their plan with President Felipe Calderón’s intelligence chief, who could brief the president without other Mexican officials learning of it. However, some foreign policy and Justice Department officials viewed the proposal as fraught with peril for the US-Mexico relationship.
A former senior diplomat questioned the proposal, saying: “Are you kidding me? A sting operation against the leading presidential candidate, who is also the arch-rival of the sitting president?” A former Justice Department official added that using informants and criminals in the investigation was problematic. The official stated: “You’re not in a situation where you can put an agent in there, so you’re dealing exclusively with people who are informants and criminals. It’s not just about the target of the investigation – it’s about what you’re proposing to do.”
The potential for things to go wrong was already evident in the US-Mexico relationship, despite Calderón’s strong partnership with the United States and the success of strikes against major traffickers, including the Beltrán Leyva gang.
For months, a major scandal had been unfolding over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) covert operation to track illegal U.S. guns flowing into Mexico. Hundreds of weapons had been permitted to enter the country, where they were used in the murders of over 150 Mexican citizens. The Mexican public, including President Calderón, was outraged by the lack of accountability.
A Justice Department official justified the decision not to pursue further action against the drug traffickers, citing concerns about foreign policy and diplomatic relationships with Mexico. This move would also have significant implications for other ongoing cases involving U.S. prosecutors who relied on cooperation with Mexican authorities.
On October 1, 2013, Soto returned to federal court in Manhattan to be sentenced for his guilty plea to a cocaine- conspiracy charge. Despite the endorsement of the prosecutors, the judge handed down a lenient sentence: five years’ probation without requiring him to return for check-ins. Following his sentencing, Soto flew back to Mexico and resumed his work in the government.
Source: Pro Publica
