McCormick Speaks With Reuters About Mexico’s Security Chief Omar Garcia Harfuch

March 5, 2026

Reuters

Gladys McCormick

History Department

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict & Collaboration

Program on Latin America & the Caribbean

Crime & Violence

Government

Latin America & the Caribbean

Reuters

Gladys McCormick

Mexico's security chief Omar Garcia Harfuch, who has lived under heavy guard since surviving a 2020 assassination attempt by the Jalisco cartel, spearheaded the operation that killed cartel leader “El Mencho”—a killing that was deeply personal given the attack on his life. His success has made him a leading early contender for the Mexican presidency in 2030, though El Mencho's death has triggered a wave of violence as rival factions compete for control.

Harfuch comes from a line of Mexican government officials. His grandfather, Marcelino Garcia Barragan, was defense minister in the 1960s while his father, Javier Garcia Paniagua, was a senator and presidential contender who led a federal security agency ‌in the 1970s. That mix ⁠of police and military heritage is rare in Mexico and puts Harfuch in a unique position to lead the country’s heavily militarized public security structure, sources say.

“Garcia Harfuch was sort of destined to follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps,” says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

Read more in the Reuters article, “For Mexico's security chief, El Mencho killing was personal,” or watch her full comments via YouTube.