Two CIA employees died Sunday when a truck they were riding in plunged into a ravine in the rugged mountain terrain connecting the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sinaloa. Two Mexican officers were also killed. The crash happened as the group was returning from an operation to destroy a clandestine drug lab, and the truck "appears to have skidded at some point and fell into a ravine, exploding," according to Chihuahua Attorney General César Jáuregui.
The identities of the two Americans as CIA officers were first reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times. CBS News independently confirmed their CIA affiliation through multiple people familiar with the matter. The CIA declined to comment.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into potential violations of national security. "We were not informed; it was a decision by the Chihuahua government," she told reporters. Under Mexican law, state governments must obtain federal authorization before collaborating with foreign agencies.
The U.S. Embassy initially described the two Americans as "U.S. Embassy instructors" participating in routine "training work" and said they were "supporting Chihuahua state authorities' efforts to combat cartel operations." The embassy declined to identify which government entity they worked for. That framing contradicted Sheinbaum's account, and the gaps between official statements on both sides drew immediate scrutiny.
The crash landed at a particularly fraught moment in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. The Trump administration has been pressing Mexico hard on cartel activity, while Sheinbaum has repeatedly insisted on Mexican sovereignty as a limit on how far that cooperation can go. "We're investigating what these people were doing and what agency they were working for," she said Tuesday.
