The Trump administration has been harder on drug cartels than perhaps any previous presidential administration. The apprehension of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on drug trafficking charges (along with his wife) and the destruction of drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, along with record-tight border enforcement, has hampered cartel operations.

Now, CNN reports that the CIA’s Ground Branch (aka Special Activities Center) have been conducting covert missions against Mexican cartels. CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, Evan Perez and Mauricio Torres report:

Since last year, CIA operatives inside Mexico have directly participated in deadly attacks on several, mostly mid-level cartel members, the sources said. “The lethality of their operations has been seriously ramped up,” said one of the people briefed on the operations. “It’s a significant expansion of the kind of thing the CIA has been willing to do inside Mexico.”

The level of CIA involvement with operations has varied, according to the sources, from more passive intelligence sharing and providing general support to direct participation in assassination operations.

Read more here.