Mexican Prosecutor Wanted Over CIA Ties Has Fled to U.S., Officials Say

A Mexican prosecutor who helped the CIA work quietly inside his state has fled to the United States and is under the protection of the U.S. government, according to U.S. and Mexican officials who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity. Their account came in the paper's investigation this week.

Guillermo Zuany Portillo was the special prosecutor for strategic operations in Chihuahua. Mexican authorities have a warrant out for him on charges of unlawful exercise of public office and making false statements to authorities. His exact whereabouts in the U.S. are unclear.

How the CIA got into Chihuahua

Chihuahua Governor María Eugenia Campos promoted Zuany to the post on Sept. 5, 2025. He reported to then-Attorney General César Jáuregui.

The Times found that Zuany shepherded CIA officers for more than six months, as they trained state forces, joined counter-cartel missions and advised during ground operations. A case file seen by El País says the agents took part in everything from instruction to operational planning, and that Zuany gave them broad access to the state attorney general's office.

El País also reports that four CIA agents, not two, took part in the April operation in El Pinal, in the municipality of Morelos.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has said repeatedly that she does not want U.S. forces on the ground in Mexico and calls it a breach of sovereignty. She has said she had no knowledge of the agency's activities in Chihuahua.

The April crash

On April 19, the Chihuahua attorney general's office announced it had dismantled a drug lab in Morelos. On the way back, a vehicle in the convoy went off the road into a ravine. Two Americans and two state officials died: state investigators' commander Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes and officer Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes.

An investigation concluded the crash was an accident. Mexico's Ministry of Security said one of the Americans entered as a visitor and the other on a diplomatic passport, and that neither had formal accreditation to take part in operations on Mexican soil.

Zuany resigned in mid-May and emptied his office, according to El País. He has been missing since.

A visa canceled, then restored

The Times reports that the U.S. government canceled Zuany's visa late last year, accusing him of ties to Mexican cartels in Chihuahua. That detail comes from a letter the Mexican government sent to the FBI and from people familiar with his visa status. The visa was reinstated after he helped set up the CIA partnership, according to Mexican and American officials.

The same Mexican letter says the FBI was investigating Zuany over alleged links to organized crime. The status of that case is unclear. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

The Times also reports that the CIA worked with Zuany despite accusations tying him to the 2022 killing of two police officers, and that one of his accusers is now in U.S. witness protection. Those are the paper's findings, drawn from interviews with at least nine officials and a trove of documents. They have not been tested in any court.

The operations had mixed results. "In several cases, the operations ended in frustration when cartel targets got away," the Times wrote, "raising suspicions among some Mexican agents that the criminals had been tipped off." In one mission to detain a cartel boss at a bar, two Mexican officials who took part told the paper the man and his crew were gone when forces arrived.

What Zuany and Jáuregui say

Zuany denies wrongdoing. "I have always conducted myself ethically and professionally," he told the Times in a text message.

Jáuregui was arrested Oct. 17 on state charges of illegal exercise of public office, which a judge ruled can go to trial. Federal officials later added a treason charge, accusing him of launching a joint operation with the CIA without telling the federal government. A federal judge was set to decide whether to allow that indictment. Jáuregui is now in a maximum-security prison.

He denies the treason charge and blames a state police commander who died in the crash for the CIA's presence in Chihuahua.

His defense lawyer, Héctor Villasana, said federal prosecutors told the court in a closed hearing that they want an exemplary punishment to prevent a repeat of the U.S. removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. State Department told the AP it is aware of and watching Jáuregui's case, but drew no link between it and the CIA deaths. Treason is a charge Mexico has not successfully taken to trial in decades.

What comes next

Sheinbaum said at her regular morning news conference on Wednesday that the investigations must continue. "It's worth finding out who this person is and how he worked with one of the U.S. agencies," she said of Zuany.

The facts leave Washington in an awkward spot. A man the U.S. government reportedly flagged for cartel ties, then reportedly restored to good standing once he proved useful to the CIA, is now wanted at home and sheltered here. Neither the CIA nor the FBI has publicly explained that sequence. Whether the U.S. will turn him over to Mexican courts, and what he would say if he testified, are the questions still unanswered.