Mexico to Create New ‘CIA’ Type Intelligence Center

Interior Minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong recently announced to the press plans to form a new agency analogous to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency. The principle mission of the new National Intelligence Center (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, CNI) will be to fight organized crime.
To optimize efficiency, the agency will act as a central collection point for information generated by all other intelligence and justice entities in the country, including the police, military, Attorney General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR), and other federal and state agencies. As Osorio Chong explained, it will “work towards the necessary bringing together of all information.”
Mexican intelligence experts have already been consulting for some months now with their Colombian, French, Spanish, U.K., and U.S. counterparts on issues related to the formation of this new agency. The CNI will be structured within the Interior Ministry (Secretaría de Gobernación, Segob), and will report to the existing Mexican Center for Investigation and National Security (Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional, CISEN).

According to Justice Mexico, the agency’s creation follows President Peña Nieto’s campaign promises to demilitarize government strategies in fighting organized crime.