Mexico military hack shows revelations of cartel involvement with some defense officials

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MEXICO CITY - A leak of more than 4 million documents from Mexico’s Department of Defense [SEDENA] continues to uncover new allegations including collusion between high level military officials and the drug cartels. Known as the 'Guacamaya Leaks', the confidential documents from the Mexican government show how military officials sold technical equipment, weapons and key information about rival gangs to cartels.

"After the revelation of the hacking, the intelligence capacities of the SEDENA, including the National Guard, are severely compromised," warned Mexican national security expert Alejandro Hope. "

Hope told Fox News Digital: "For one thing, their information-gathering methods may have been exposed, essentially throwing away several million dollars of technology investment. Likewise, the relationship with any informant that military intelligence has is seriously damaged, even if those names are not among the stolen information [the informants do not know it.] Similarly, the exchange of information with foreign agencies will be difficult due to well-founded fears that SEDENA's systems are not secure."

The leaks are especially relevant at a time when the government has been accused by critics of militarizing public security by granting extraordinary powers to the army, despite condemnation and anger from citizens and dozens of civil society organizations. Observers fear that the country's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who promised to bring peace and take the army to the barracks, has given them the highest budget and unlimited power that no other president had previously conferred on them. 

President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, center, waves to the crowd next to Secretary of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval, left, and Secretary of the Navy José Rafael Ojeda Durán, right, during the annual military parade as part of the independence day celebrations last month in Mexico City. (Photo by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images)

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Hope cautioned "this is a fundamental reason to deny more power, faculties and budget to SEDENA: it is an institution that simply refuses to submit to democratic controls."

Luis Rubio, Chairman of México Evalúa, a think tank based in Mexico City, told Fox News Digital the leaks "exhibit an army with little sophistication in general, very basic in its approaches, little knowledge of the world in which they live and less of the rest of the planet. Military officials are very concerned and sensitive to any external criticism. Specifically, they retain the very "sovereignist" vision that the Americans are a danger, a threat to Mexico's natural resources, especially oil."

President López Obrador has minimized the scandal and stated at the time:"There's nothing that isn't known." He said the intrusion apparently occurred during a change of Defense Department systems. According to his critics, his objective is to keep intact his relationship with the criminal groups that can guarantee him resources and support to maintain his political ambitions into the 2024 presidential elections. Some observers say for him, the army plays a fundamental role in his electoral and political agenda, and that is why he is willing to protect them and to cover any scandal at any price.

"The three lessons I take from Guacamaya leaks are: The Army's inability to understand and relate to society in general, their displeasure with the responsibilities that have been assigned to them but that, as a structure that answers to their boss, they discipline themselves." He said that "Perhaps the most important, is that their loyalty is to the President, not to the State or the Constitution" México Evalúa chairman Rubio said.

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Federal authorities seized several high-powered firearms and ammunition related to a gun trafficking group that provided the weapons to a violent Mexican drug cartel, authorities said.  (Justice Department )

Experts fear that this complicity will continue to deteriorate the security and weaken the rule of law even more. As the leaks reveal, there are links between former SEDENA pilots and drug traffickers, and at least 70 criminal groups are responsible for the violence and crimes in Veracruz, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. The government assigns seven times more soldiers to detain migrants than to fight Huachicol, or fuel theft.

In a report titled "Results of Air Intelligence," dated September 2020, SEDENA stated that "organized crime uses the airport infrastructure and the national airspace, taking advantage of the vacuum of authority due to the lack of capabilities of some agencies, lack of a legal framework and inefficient administrative processes".

Observers expect that a lot of key findings will come out in the following weeks, as the leaks continue to reveal how the government has been spying on citizens, journalists, activists and politicians. Mexican digital rights organization R3D, or Red en los Defensa de los Derechos Digitales, has identified Pegasus infections against journalists and a human rights defenders taking place between 2019 and 2021. The cases occurred after the Mexican president assured the public that the government no longer used the spyware and that there would be no further abuses.

The leaks also reveal that SEDENA made confidential reports of governors, mayors, local and federal legislators, as well as prosecutors in the states, in addition to lists with the data of the different candidates who participated in the last elections. 

Hacker attacking internet (iStock)

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There are also reports about corruption and weaknesses in customs and how that facilitates the trafficking of drugs and products through the country's entry and exit points. Politicians have sought out the armed forces themselves to connect contractors and service companies in the many important infrastructure projects they control. Among them is the Felipe Ángeles International Airport and the Mayan Train.

The former director of the Center for Investigation and National Security recently wrote in a Mexican publication that the leaks harm the Mexican state due to the government's inability to protect the security infrastructure required by certain strategic areas.

In his article to Letras Libres, a Mexican magazine, Guillermo Valdés wrote, "The combination of these two evils, the absence of a national security policy and the scarcity of resources for the basic operation of security agencies, is behind the ineffective cybersecurity strategy of the Mexican State. A high-ranking official from the national security cabinet resigned a few months ago, fed up with the utter futility of his three-year efforts to push the cybersecurity strategy in government."

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Unlike Mexico's president, Hope said the leaks are very damaging and concerning. 

"These days, we have learned of the existence of arms trafficking networks fed from inside military camps, of corruption and money laundering in the contracting by the SEDENA of works and services, of openly illegal telephone interventions, carried out without judicial review. But we have also discovered that, in many cases, military personnel know and do not act, they are aware of possible homicides and do little or nothing to prevent them, they accumulate intelligence information on possible links between political actors and organized crime gangs and nothing is derives from that knowledge" he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.