No one fought more determinedly against the Mexican drug mafia than Omar García Harfuch. The new security minister will take tough action against the criminal networks and has already secured a ton of fentanyl pills worth $400 million.
Determined: Omar García Harfuch systematically fights the drug mafia.
Mexico's secret weapon against the drug mafia is a stocky man with a three-day beard. The media calls him the “super cop”: Omar García Harfuch, 42, politician’s offspring and survivor of an assassination attempt in Mexico City. Four years ago, his armored vehicle was riddled with 400 bullets, as were his two bodyguards, who did not survive the attack.
Harfuch, the then police chief of Mexico City, had to move into the main police building for security reasons. For months he was unable to see his daughters or take part in operations. That's why he didn't allow himself to be intimidated. On the contrary: “My greatest motivation is not to kill everyone who wanted to kill me, but rather to curb crime,” he told the newspaper “El País” afterwards. And: “I am more motivated than ever.”
He has now proven that once again. As Claudia Sheinbaum's new security minister, he has temporarily moved from his office in Mexico City to a barracks in Culiacán – the drug stronghold in the north of the country. Just a few hours later, his teams stormed two laboratories there, where they seized a ton of fentanyl pills with a market value of the equivalent of $400 million. And this is how it should continue: “These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” Harfuch later explained at a press conference.
Trump is putting pressure on
The operation is also a success story for the left-wing president, who valued Omar García Harfuch as mayor. From 2019 to 2023, the number of murders in the capital halved. The aim now is to curb the violence across the country that escalated after Sheinbaum took office. Donald Trump is now also putting pressure on the country, threatening to increase punitive tariffs of 25 percent on Mexican imports if Mexico does not stop migration and smuggling of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
The hub is Sinaloa, home of the cartel of the same name and hotspot for the drug mafia. Legendary cartel bosses such as Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, whose heirs are now waging war, come from the state. Bomb explosions and drone attacks, kidnappings and executions in broad daylight are nothing unusual.
Omar García Harfuch, nicknamed Tiger, is now supposed to keep order. If not, then who? After studying law, Harfuch joined the federal police in 2008 to fight the cartels in the bloodiest years of the Calderón era. His colleagues describe him as a “true police officer”. “He knows our shortcomings, the tactics, the strategies,” said one veteran. “And he knows when he’s being lied to.”
Harfuch also learned the craft at Harvard courses or at the American anti-drug agency DEA. He is considered a security expert with many years of experience and good contacts in Washington. His reputation may be tough, but he's not a Rambo. Instead, he relies on modern investigation methods and undercover agents; he has databases and bank accounts searched with the aim of catching not only killers and drug dealers, but also the mafia networks and their backers.
Shots instead of kisses
This is a turnaround in Mexican drug policy. Sheinbaum's mentor, party friend and predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, sat down to cozy up to the cartels and even met Guzmán's mother for a picnic. Military presence on the streets and preventive social programs for young people were intended to peacefully curb the violence.
“Kisses instead of shots” is the name of the strategy, which failed miserably. The mafia was able to establish its control over the country. Particularly in the state of Sinaloa, where a conspiracy has flourished for ten years, in which the governor, members of the ruling party and security forces are also implicated.
Omar García Harfuch was also sometimes suspected. Especially because his career began under ex-security minister Genaro García Luna, who was convicted of drug trafficking in the USA. However, the allegations can never be substantiated.
Between gold-plated harp as Mexico's security tsar. It was he who brought the president on her “zero tolerance” course and took control of drug policy away from the military. What is also new in his strategy is not just to fight cartels, but also to specifically combat the harmful fentanyl. More than 400,000 Americans have died from the opioid epidemic, which began with the American pharmaceutical industry's careless distribution of painkillers.
Holed: This is what Harfuch's vehicle looked like after the attack.
Now the Sheinbaum-Harfuch team wants to kill two birds with one stone: appease Trump and address the most urgent concerns of the population who suffer most from the violence, kidnappings and protection rackets. But a trade war with the USA would also be fatal, especially since 80 percent of Mexican exports go there. The timing of the raids could not have been a coincidence.
Who would have thought that the two of them would one day work so well together? They grew up in opposing political camps: Harfuch is the grandson of General Marcelino García Barragán, a young revolutionary who rose to become governor of the state of Jalisco in the ranks of the then state party PRI in the 1940s. His father was also a high-ranking representative of the PRI, which in 1968 took action against the students whose protests Sheinbaum's parents supported.
The two met in 2019 when she was mayor of Mexico City and her then security minister was unable to curb crime. One of her advisors introduced her to Harfuch, who had stood out as a clever and eager agent in the criminal division of the Attorney General's Office. Sheinbaum appointed him head of the capital's police force, which radically changed things: he strengthened the intelligence services and investigative bodies, professionalized the police and worked more closely with the public prosecutor's office. With success: violent crimes fell by 60 percent.
The result convinced Sheinbaum. She would have liked to have made him her successor as mayor of Mexico City, but this failed due to resistance within the party. Instead, he is now her trump card against Trump and loyal to the president. When Harfuch was asked if he wanted the job as security minister, he said: “I'll just continue to work with Dr. Sheinbaum work.”
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