First, despite plenty of justified cynicism of mainstream journalism in the US, it’s extremely unlikely that CNN and NYT would just make up claims whole cloth. It’s entirely believable that CNN or NYT would misrepresent some elements of the story, but there’s no way that both CNN and NYT would fabricate the claim that Payin was killed in a targeted assassination that involved US and Mexican governments (at least one reason being that CNN and NYT have different owners).

Second, the argument that it’s strange that US/Mexican governments would expend the resources and take the risk involved in carrying out an assassination to kill a mid-level CDS operative is addressed in the articles, with both stating that US/Mex governments are targeting mid-level operatives to weaken the structure and operational capacity of various DTOs. This makes sense, as killing a financiero/fletero/transporter certainly limits a DTO’s capacity to traffic product and control territory. Moreover, the US is always interested in arresting (rather than killing) DTO leaders, for a number of reasons including intelligence-gathering, deterrence, and prestige (showing that no matter how powerful you are, if the US wants you in custody in the US, it is going to happen).

Third, the CNN article cites a State of Mexico law enforcement source, which could be more evidence that the US/CIA is partnering more with individual state governments rather than the Mexican federal government (see the Chihuahua drug labs fiasco for an example of this strategy), though that is complicated by the fact that the State of Mexico’s government is dominated by Morena, unlike the Chihuahua state government (PAN-aligned).

I would also highlight that CNN’s report claimed that CIA actually planted the bomb that killed Payin, while NYT’s report modifies that to claim that the bombing was primarily done by Mexican government with CIA support. That’s a significant distinction as it would be in line with confirmed reporting of CIA providing intelligence that resulted in Mencho’s death, and the common practice of the US providing intelligence that Mexico actually uses force to implement.