Six years ago Mexico’s president disbanded the country’s Federal Police and handed security responsibilities fully to the military. Now, his successor has quietly begun to build an elite civilian investigative and special operations force to fight the drug cartels.

President Claudia Sheinbaum had already shown a willingness early in her presidency to move away from former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s oft-criticized “hugs, not bullets” strategy. It focused on addressing the social roots of crime rather than directly confronting Mexico’s powerful cartels.

Sheinbaum's security chief, Omar García Harfuch, is drawing on his law enforcement contacts — mostly from the former ranks of the Federal Police — to claw back security capabilities from the armed forces with a civilian force under his direct command.
The government has yet to formally announce the new National Operations Unit, known by its Spanish initials UNO, but its existence is an open secret among former members.