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‘I Am Under Threat’: Why Mexico Politician Calls Her Country a ‘Narco-State’  

Sen. Lilly Tellez attends the premiere of the film "Inesperado" in Mexico City, Mexico, Oct. 23, 2019. (Victor Chavez via Getty Images)

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Virginia Allen is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal and host of "The Daily Signal Podcast" and "Problematic Women." Send an email to Virginia.

MIAMI—A Mexican senator has received death threats for speaking out boldly against the criminal cartels operating in her country.

“I am under threat,” Sen. Lilly Tellez told The Daily Signal. “But I have faith in God, and that’s why I do this. And if we don’t speak about it, this will get worse, and no one is safe.”

Tellez has been serving in Mexico’s Senate since 2018 and is outspoken about the country’s crime and drug problems, going so far as to call Mexico a “narco-state, because the former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made a pact with the cartels.”

“He took money from them to get into power, and in exchange, he didn’t go after the cartels,” Tellez claimed.

Tellez is not the only political leader to make the allegation. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has accused Lopez Obrador of taking payments from the Sinaloa Cartel.

In 2024, The New York Times reported that U.S. law enforcement spent years looking into allegations, but a formal investigation was never launched. Law enforcement reportedly dropped the inquiry over a lack of “appetite to pursue allegations against the leader of one of America’s top allies.”

Lopez Obrador has denied that the United States inquired about his alleged deals with the cartels and has called accusations that he took money from the cartels “completely false.”

However, Tellez asserts that Lopez Obrador allowed the cartels to influence Mexico’s government and that the criminal organizations continue to exploit that access today.

Mexico’s Education Secretary Mario Delgado is a “narco-politician,” Tellez claims, accusing him of being involved “with the cartel that smuggles oil.” She accuses Coordinator of Advisors to the President Jesús Ramírez Cuevas of the same.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is “protecting these narco-politicians,” Tellez says.

The Embassy of Mexico denied the claims, calling them “unfounded,” and told The Daily Signal that the accusations “belong in the realm of fiction, not in a serious conversation about security. What we can speak to are results, measurable reductions in violence, and sustained action against organized crime.”

Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations are “among the world’s leading producers of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. They “also control the wholesale trafficking of these drugs, and others such as cocaine, into the United States.”

Sheinbaum was critical of Tellez in January after Tellez appeared on Fox News and said Mexicans want help from the U.S. to combat the cartels.

“It’s not a minor issue that a senator gave an interview to a foreign media outlet calling for intervention,” Sheinbaum said.

President Donald Trump announced in March a new military coalition aimed at addressing threats from drug cartels.

“The United States will train and mobilize partner nation militaries to achieve the most effective fighting force necessary to dismantle cartels and their ability to export violence and pursue influence through organized intimidation,” Trump’s proclamation declared.

In response to Trump’s proposal, Sheinbaum said the U.S. should focus first on stopping the flow of illegal weapons to the cartels in Mexico.

Despite signs of tension, the U.S. and Mexico remain close allies. The U.S. provided intelligence to Mexico in February in an operation that killed the senior cartel leader known as “El Mencho,” according to the White House.

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