The entire security cabinet of the Mexican presidency held a press conference on Wednesday, August 13, to confirm information released a day earlier by the US: the transfer of 26 Mexican drug traffickers to various American prisons. Standing alongside the heads of the army and navy, Public Security Minister Omar García Harfuch specified that 988 military and police officers had participated in the operation the previous day. Prosecutor Alejandro Gertz explained that this was not an "extradition" to the US but a "transfer of prisoners requested by the US judiciary, which has pledged not to sentence them to death."

Harfuch justified the operation as necessary "to improve national security, given that these men continue to run their organizations from prison by corrupting or threatening prison authorities." However, for organized crime experts, this "expulsion" − much like the extradition of 29 other drug traffickers in February − mainly responds to ongoing pressure from Washington for Mexico to curb the export of fentanyl to the US.

"We need to put this latest event in the current context, where Mexico is facing very serious threats. President [Claudia Sheinbaum] has no choice but to cooperate with the US, both to avoid tariffs and to prevent direct intervention by American troops on Mexican soil," said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University in the US and an expert on organized crime.

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