Key Points — Mexican Navy Special Forces (SEMAR) captured Audias Flores Silva, alias “El Jardinero,” in Nayarit Monday April 27 — confirmed by Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch on social media. The Mexico CJNG capture was the result of 19 months of surveillance and a coordinated operation involving SEMAR Special Forces, the SSPC, and the […]
The post Mexico Captures Second CJNG Cartel Boss ‘El Jardinero’ in Two Months appeared first on The Rio Times.
Key Points — Chihuahua Governor María Eugenia “Maru” Campos appears before Mexico’s Senate Tuesday April 28 at 10am to explain her state’s collaboration with US intelligence agents on a April 17-19 antinarco operation that killed four people, including two confirmed CIA officers. The Mexico CIA Chihuahua crisis has escalated into a direct confrontation between President […]
The post The CIA Operated in Mexico Without Permission, Sheinbaum Says appeared first on The Rio Times.
The Mexican Navy, so battered lately by the huachicol scandals—the rampant smuggling of stolen fuel—and the interoceanic train accident, has just scored a major point. In a remarkably precise operation, a special forces detachment arrested Audias Flores, aka “El Jardinero” (The Gardener), in Nayarit on Monday. Flores was a key member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leadership and a candidate to lead it after the death of its top boss, Nemesio Oseguera, in an Army operation in February.
© Secretaría de Marina
Arrests of Audias Flores and César Alejandro ‘N’ lead to gunmen blocking roads, as US embassy warns employees to avoid Reynosa after earlier arrest
The Mexican authorities have arrested two top criminals, one of them a close ally of the slain founder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), prompting gunmen to block roads in the western state of Nayarit.
Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, is a regional commander in control of swathes of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast. He was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the cartel and was killed in a security operation in February.
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© Photograph: Mexican Secretariat of National Defense/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mexican Secretariat of National Defense/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mexican Secretariat of National Defense/AFP/Getty Images
Medellin, Colombia — On Tuesday, a group of more than two thousand migrants, mainly of Haitian origin, reportedly left the southeastern city of Tapachula in Chiapas, on their way to cities in central and northern Mexico.
In years past, migrant caravans traversing Mexico were usually destined for the United States. But following the second Trump administration’s tightening of asylum policy, this goal has become more unrealistic, and Mexico has increasingly become a destination country for migrants, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Some of the people who make up the “David” caravan have spent weeks or more in southern Mexico, waiting to normalize their migration status to be able to move more freely in Mexico, according to migrant news website Conexión Migrante. The process can be slow as Mexico fields more asylum requests.
According to the UNHCR, between 2020 and 2024, there were almost 500,000 asylum requests in Mexico, a number that has resulted in long delays from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) and the National Institute of Migration (INM).
As of September 2025, there were more than 58,800 new asylum claims, and COMAR had increased its processing capacity fivefold since 2018.
Between October 1 2024 and June 30 2025, there were 142,145 requests for humanitarian visas in Mexico, but only 5,191 were granted, according to the INM Strategic Plan.
The bureaucratic problems pre-date Trump’s immigration crackdown in his second term.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced COMAR to suspend activity, accumulating a backlog of asylum petitions. Exacerbating the issue was Trump’s January 2025 suspension of the CBP One digital asylum-seeking app in the U.S., followed by budget cuts to COMAR from the Mexican government as well as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Via a Whatsapp group organized for the caravan, many members cited extreme delays for processing asylum applications as a motive for heading north from Mexico’s southern border. Lack of employment and cost of living were also cited, according to Conexión Migrante.
Without documentation, many foreign migrants are stuck in a legal limbo, where they run the risk of being stopped by authorities, deported or sent back to the southern border with Guatemala.
Migrants have also been targeted by criminal groups for kidnapping and extortion, with ProPublica reporting that this problem has entered a new phase in terms of scale and character. Migrants’ undefined legal status also often forces them to work long hours with lower pay, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Since Claudia Sheinbaum took office in October 2024, there have been 18 migrant caravans leaving from Tapachula, though none of them have made it further than Oaxaca, the state neighbouring Chiapas.
At the end of March, the ‘Genesis’ migrant caravan set off from Tapachula, but it was intercepted after 12 days and dissolved by the INM.
According to local news outlet Diario del Sur, on Thursday, the David caravan arrived in Escuintla, Chiapas after three days of walking, where members will rest before continuing the journey.
Many migrants were demonstrating signs of extreme physical exhaustion, and approximately thirty who fell behind the main group have been sent back to Tapachula, where they remain under the custody of the authorities, according to Reporteros del Sur.
Featured image description: David migrant caravan in Mexico
Featured image credits: @reporterosdlsur via X
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Key Points — Mexico’s total goods exports rose 27.65 percent year-on-year in March 2026, INEGI confirmed Monday, sharply accelerating from January’s 8.1 percent and February’s 15.8 percent. The surge in Mexico exports March 2026 was driven entirely by non-petroleum manufacturing, which expanded 29.59 percent, while petroleum exports fell 20.41 percent — the twelfth consecutive monthly […]
The post Mexico Exports Jump 27.65% in March as Non-Auto Manufacturing Hits Five-Year High appeared first on The Rio Times.
Key Points — Banamex began a round of investor consultations Monday ahead of a new bond issuance, according to IFR reporting picked up by Reuters and confirmed by El Economista. The Banamex bond issuance roadshow is the first major debt-market move by Mexico’s second-largest retail bank since Citigroup began the formal separation from its US […]
The post Citigroup’s Mexican Retail Bank Returns to Bond Markets Ahead of 2027 IPO appeared first on The Rio Times.
Key Points — Grupo México, the conglomerate of Mexican billionaire Germán Larrea, told the Mexican Stock Exchange on Monday it will combine its power-generation assets with Saavi Energía, the country’s largest private power producer, owned by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the BlackRock-owned infrastructure fund. The Grupo Mexico Saavi Energia platform will operate 14 plants with […]
The post BlackRock and Mexico’s Largest Mining Group Merge Power Assets to Create 4,510 MW Generation Giant appeared first on The Rio Times.
© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
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© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
© Aimee Melo
Claudia Sheinbaum says Mexico was not aware of US participation until four officials were killed in car crash
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Monday that her government told the United States, in a diplomatic note, that the unauthorized presence of US officials at an anti-narcotics operation in the northern state of Chihuahua should not be repeated.
The incident came to light after two US officials, along with two Mexican officials, were killed in a car crash on 19 April after the operation. Sheinbaum has said the federal government was not aware of the participation of the US officials, who were widely reported to be CIA officers.
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© Photograph: Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters
© Photograph: Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters
© Photograph: Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters
The fate of a few artworks by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco has Mexico on edge, to the point of practically becoming a matter of state. Ever since the announcement early this year of a long-term agreement to transfer the Gelman collection to the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander, which will be responsible for the management (including conservation, research and exhibition) of part of one of the most significant collections of 20th-century Mexican art, a formidable controversy has erupted, forcing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to step in and try to clarify the situation.
© Roberto Serra - Iguana Press (Getty Images)
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