Latin America Daily Security Brief

CNN published an exclusive on May 12 reporting that CIA Ground Branch paramilitary officers have been conducting covert operations inside Mexico, including being physically present — providing real-time intelligence, support, and equipment — during the February operation that killed CJNG leader Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera Cervantes. CIA officers did not pull triggers directly, but their operational involvement went well beyond passive liaison. The report also states U.S. personnel were briefly endangered when CJNG remnants launched retaliatory narcobloqueos following El Mencho's death.

Both governments moved quickly to deny the CNN account. President Claudia Sheinbaum called the report false and said Mexico does not permit foreign military or intelligence operations on its soil. The White House issued a parallel denial. However, additional sourcing from El País and a former DEA operations chief cited by CNN confirms that U.S. intelligence presence in Mexico is neither new nor exceptional — it's been embedded for years through SEMAR vetted units. The FGE Chihuahua had already separately acknowledged, in a May 7 press release, that foreign agents were present in their offices before the Zuany narco-lab raid, one of them armed.

Mexico deployed more than 1,290 security personnel to Chilapa, Guerrero on May 13 — 690 Army soldiers with 80 vehicles, 400 Guardia Nacional with 50 vehicles, and 200 state police — after days of violent clashes between the Los Ardillos cartel and community self-defense groups. The violence displaced residents and prompted desperate citizens to send appeals directly to President Trump, bypassing Mexico City. Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez announced the government will also open 'dialogue tables' with criminal actors, a move Excélsior called 'alarmingly' conciliatory.

A cartel attack on a funeral procession was filmed in broad daylight in Sinaloa, with Mexican Army soldiers standing nearby and doing nothing to intervene. The footage circulated widely on May 14 and adds to pressure on the government over military passivity. Governor Rubén Rocha Moya is currently on leave following a separate threat to his residence.

Mexican federal authorities reported the arrest of 25 cartel-linked figures in recent days, including 'El Machete,' a cell leader tied to Unión Tepito in Mexico City, and two operators of Gente del Guano — linked to Aureliano 'El Guano' Guzmán Loera, Chapo's brother — in Durango. The head of a Los Mezcales sicario unit was also detained in Colima, and 'Billyboy,' a violence generator for the Cártel Independiente, was arrested in the same state.

President Gustavo Petro publicly confirmed on May 13 that he personally ordered the bombing of an ELN command-security nucleus in Tibú, Norte de Santander. The operation — a joint Army, Air Force, and FGR-CTI action — targeted the Frente Luis Enrique León Guerra, a structure responsible for guarding the ELN's Comando Central and controlling criminal corridors along the Catatumbo river. The military reported seven ELN fighters killed and the destruction of two fortified camps, drone-adapted explosives, and anti-personnel mine materials.

In a notable diplomatic admission, Petro stated the operation was executed 'within the agreed will' of Venezuela's acting government under Delcy Rodríguez. Cross-border coordination against the ELN — which operates on both sides of the Norte de Santander/Zulia frontier — has been an informal arrangement, but this marks the first time a Colombian president has publicly attributed a specific combat operation to bilateral agreement with Caracas.

The ELN denied any casualties, calling the strike an attack into 'empty space' and accusing the Colombian military of fabricating results. The guerrilla organization also accused the government of a covert alliance with the armed Frente 33 group — a rival of the ELN in Catatumbo — alleging joint operations against civilian populations. The contradiction between military claims of seven dead and ELN denials is unresolved.

A separate incident killed four Colombian soldiers who walked into an ELN minefield on the Meta-Guaviare border. The military clarified the location was rural San José del Guaviare, not La Macarena as initially reported by locals. The ELN also burned two public buses in García Rovira province, Santander, near the Norte de Santander border.

A CORE think-tank report published May 13 found that the number of armed groups on Colombia's payroll grew 110% between the Duque and Petro governments. The Estado Mayor Central split into two factions; Segunda Marquetalia fractured again in November 2024, spawning a new Coordinadora Nacional — Ejército Bolivariano under 'Walter Mendoza'; and the ELN lost an entire front (Comuneros del Sur in Nariño) to breakaway negotiations. The Red Cross separately issued a warning that 2025 was Colombia's worst humanitarian year in a decade. ACNUR and the Defensoría del Pueblo put Catatumbo-related displacement at over 100,000 people.

Cuba's energy minister confirmed on May 14 that the island has exhausted both diesel and fuel oil reserves. The BBC and Guardian reported the announcement the same morning. This is the direct consequence of Venezuela halting oil deliveries following Maduro's capture in January 2026, and Mexico sharply reducing its own shipments by January. Russia had been filling part of the gap with donated oil, but that supply is also running out.

Reuters reported protests erupting across multiple Havana neighborhoods on May 13 as rolling blackouts extended beyond 20 hours per day. The unrest is spreading beyond the capital. Cuban Deputy Minister's social media post acknowledging the country's struggles went viral before being deleted. President Díaz-Canel has publicly rejected the 'failed state' label, but the framing has already been adopted by U.S. officials — Secretary Hegseth confirmed Cuba is a national security threat in Congressional testimony, and Trump posted separately that he would pursue talks with the island while pressing his cabinet for faster results in accelerating its collapse.

Cuba's energy minister cited the U.S. 'blockade' as the primary cause, framing it as a deliberate siege. The practical reality is more structural: the regime's power grid has not been maintained at functional levels for years, and the loss of Venezuelan subsidized oil removed the last major prop keeping the system operational. The minister urged each municipality to find independent energy formulas using biomass and wind.

Venezuela's acting government under Delcy Rodríguez launched a $150 billion sovereign debt restructuring in April — the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Rodríguez's government that same month. Trump confirmed earlier this year that Venezuela would ship sanctioned oil to the U.S. at market rates, with proceeds controlled by the White House. The financial restructuring is the first serious attempt to normalize Venezuela's external obligations since the 2017 default.

Despite the political opening, oil sector investment remains frozen. Industry sources cited by Petroleum Australia say Venezuela's new hydrocarbons law has yet to produce a single finalized deal, and even local lawyers cannot interpret how it will function in practice. Legal ambiguity plus political volatility is keeping major operators on the sidelines.

Venezuela's Zulia state — specifically Jesús María Semprún municipality — is under de facto curfew following armed attacks tied to ELN activity near the Colombian border at Casigua El Cubo, which abuts Tibú. Venezuelan authorities expressed concern to Semana about the rising violence on their side of the Catatumbo border corridor, and ACNUR confirmed significant refugee and displacement flows crossing into Venezuelan territory.

President Lula launched the 'Brasil Contra o Crime Organizado' program on May 13, allocating R$11 billion (approximately $2 billion USD) to disrupt criminal financial structures, harden prison security, and recover gang-controlled territories. The program was announced five months before Brazil's October 2026 elections — an explicit political calculation in response to PCC and Comando Vermelho's continued territorial expansion.

One of the program's most operationally specific measures: 138 federal prisons will be placed in 'airplane mode,' cutting off all external communications to prevent incarcerated faction leaders from running operations remotely. This directly targets the command-and-control model used by both PCC and CV, whose leadership coordinates drug trafficking and violence from inside prison walls.

A new multi-source report on Amazon criminal activity published May 13-14 found that PCC and Comando Vermelho have extended deep into rainforest territory, exploiting institutional vacuums to dominate illegal mining, drug trafficking, and bribery networks. The report notes that criminal organizations are paying bribes that far exceed official police and military salaries, making corruption effectively structural rather than exceptional.

A judge was shot and killed in Ecuador on May 13 while traveling to her gym without her security detail, according to Ecuador's judicial oversight body. The killing occurred under the active state of emergency. CBS News reported U.S. commandos recently participated in a joint operation with Ecuadorian forces targeting a coastal criminal hub linked to a narco-terrorist organization — a separate incident confirming deepening U.S. military engagement.

U.S. Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Pentagon on May 13 demanding suspension of anti-drug military operations in Ecuador. The letter cites 'alarming authoritarian drift' under President Daniel Noboa, including violent suppression of Indigenous-led protests, threats against the Constitutional Court, and freezing of civil society bank accounts. Lawmakers argue the militarized strategy has failed to reduce trafficking or violence despite more than two years of emergency rule.

Two members of Los Choneros with alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel del Noroeste were arrested in El Oro province, according to El Universo. Two vehicles were also recovered in the operation — a small but notable reminder that Mexican cartel franchising into Ecuadorian criminal networks continues even as attention focuses on the security crisis's domestic dimensions.

InSight Crime published an investigation confirming that several Costa Rican nationals have become the first citizens of that country extradited to the United States on federal drug charges. Those extradited include alleged narco-politicians and traffickers accused of dominating Caribbean coast cocaine routes tied to Colombian and Mexican networks.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg is traveling to Costa Rica (and Panama and Guyana) from May 12-16 for bilateral meetings focused on energy security and critical minerals partnerships. The visit is part of a broader U.S. push to consolidate economic relationships with cooperative Central American governments ahead of regional elections.

U.S. deportations to El Salvador have doubled since the Trump administration took office, according to reporting published May 13. President Bukele has aligned El Salvador closely with the Trump agenda — both on migration enforcement and security posture. Bukele also announced a new megaprison specifically designed for corruption and narco-trafficking cases, extending his security-state model beyond the gang crackdown to target white-collar criminal networks.

Armed gangs now control approximately 85% of Port-au-Prince, according to reporting published May 14. The United States, Spain, and Argentina have issued the highest-level travel warnings for the country. The gang-controlled capital has effectively severed the Haitian government's physical authority over most of the city, and the political and social systems described as 'fragile' are functionally non-operational in most urban zones.

China renewed diplomatic pressure on Paraguay on May 13, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo urging Asunción to 'recognize the one-China principle' and 'see where the arc of history bends.' Paraguay remains one of the last countries in the Western Hemisphere to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The statement reflects Beijing's ongoing effort to isolate Taipei, and the timing — amid U.S. diplomatic tours in the region — suggests China is watching Helberg's Central American circuit closely.

A hantavirus cross-border investigation is underway in Argentina and Chile to determine the geographic origin of a new cluster of cases, based on reporting from May 14. No casualty figures were immediately available, but the investigation involves both governments' public health agencies. Argentina is also dealing with separate domestic protests over President Milei's cuts to university funding, with staff wages sharply reduced.

Guatemalan security forces dismantled multiple clandestine surveillance networks used by Barrio 18 to monitor security force movements and coordinate territorial control. Defense Minister General Henry Sáenz confirmed to AFP that U.S. strategic partnership on transnational organized crime remains active, framing the counter-narcotics mission as hemispheric.