2/2 🧵 4/5 🧵What makes this hit harder: the convoy had just come off a serious crackdown. Mexican authorities said six clandestine drug labs were dismantled over the weekend, with ovens, gas cylinders, and other production equipment seized. One lab was described by Chihuahua’s attorney general as one of the largest found in Mexico for meth production. So this wasn’t routine paperwork — it was a high-risk operation against industrial-scale narco infrastructure.
5/5 🧵The bigger point is ugly but clear: even when law enforcement wins, the risk doesn’t end at the raid. US Ambassador Ronald Johnson called the deaths a reminder of the danger faced by both Mexican and American officials working these cases, and said the mission would continue. The fight against cartel production is still a grinding, lethal job — before, during, and after the bust. 📎 Source
1/2 🧵 1/5 🧵Four investigators — including two US Embassy officials — died hours after a major anti-drug operation in Chihuahua. That’s the brutal headline: not a cartel shootout, but a convoy crash on a mountain highway after authorities had just shut down multiple clandestine meth labs.
2/5 🧵The crash happened around 2 a.m. Sunday in mountainous terrain on the Chihuahua–Ciudad Juárez highway. Their vehicle, part of a six-car convoy, reportedly plunged about 200 meters off a cliff and caught fire. Three victims were thrown from the car; one was trapped inside. All four died at the scene.
3/5 🧵The dead also included Pedro Ramón Oseguera Cervantes, head of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency, and his bodyguard Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes. The two US Embassy investigators had not been publicly identified at the time of reporting. They were returning from an enforcement operation in Morelos when the crash happened.
2/2 🧵 4/5 🧵What makes this hit harder: the convoy had just come off a serious crackdown. Mexican authorities said six clandestine drug labs were dismantled over the weekend, with ovens, gas cylinders, and other production equipment seized. One lab was described by Chihuahua’s attorney general as one of the largest found in Mexico for meth production. So this wasn’t routine paperwork — it was a high-risk operation against industrial-scale narco infrastructure.
5/5 🧵The bigger point is ugly but clear: even when law enforcement wins, the risk doesn’t end at the raid. US Ambassador Ronald Johnson called the deaths a reminder of the danger faced by both Mexican and American officials working these cases, and said the mission would continue. The fight against cartel production is still a grinding, lethal job — before, during, and after the bust. 📎 Source
#threadstorm
1/2 🧵 1/5 🧵Four investigators — including two US Embassy officials — died hours after a major anti-drug operation in Chihuahua. That’s the brutal headline: not a cartel shootout, but a convoy crash on a mountain highway after authorities had just shut down multiple clandestine meth labs.
2/5 🧵The crash happened around 2 a.m. Sunday in mountainous terrain on the Chihuahua–Ciudad Juárez highway. Their vehicle, part of a six-car convoy, reportedly plunged about 200 meters off a cliff and caught fire. Three victims were thrown from the car; one was trapped inside. All four died at the scene.
3/5 🧵The dead also included Pedro Ramón Oseguera Cervantes, head of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency, and his bodyguard Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes. The two US Embassy investigators had not been publicly identified at the time of reporting. They were returning from an enforcement operation in Morelos when the crash happened.