Ten Mexican officials, including the sitting governor of Sinaloa, were charged in Manhattan federal court with helping the Sinaloa cartel move drugs into the United States, the U.S. Justice Department announced, according to the Guardian’s report of April 30.
The governor, Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, has held the job since November 2021. The others are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa. Some belong to Morena, the ruling party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
What the indictment alleges
US prosecutors say the defendants played key roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine across the border. The indictment claims the cartel helped put Rocha Moya in office in 2021 by kidnapping and intimidating his political rivals, and was promised protection for its operations once he took power.
Rocha Moya is charged with conspiracy to import narcotics, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and a further conspiracy count. A conviction could mean life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years.
The US government lists the Sinaloa cartel among eight Latin American criminal groups it has designated as terrorist organizations.
Mexico’s answer
Rocha Moya answered on X. He said he “categorically and unequivocally” rejected the charges, which he called “completely untrue and without any basis.” He described them as part of “a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico’s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty.”
Sheinbaum told her daily press conference that her government would look into the allegations. “We will not cover up for anyone who has committed a crime,” she said. But she added: “if there is no clear evidence, it is evident that the objective of these charges by the Department of Justice is political.”
Mexico’s attorney general’s office said it would study the evidence from Washington to decide whether it justified detaining and extraditing the ten, and would open its own investigation. The foreign relations secretariat said it had received several extradition requests. If prosecutors find “compelling and irrefutable evidence,” Sheinbaum said, the case must proceed under Mexican law.
She also pushed back at US Ambassador Ronald Johnson, who had said fighting transnational crime was a shared priority. “An ambassador cannot have an interventionist attitude,” Sheinbaum said. “We will not allow any foreign government to come and decide the future of the Mexican people.”
Pressure from Washington
The Trump administration has threatened tariffs and unilateral military action. In response, Mexico has stepped up arrests and drug seizures, sent roughly 100 high-level cartel operatives to US prisons and gone after kingpins. In the two months before the indictment, its military killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, and arrested Audias Flores Silva, a possible successor.
Sources
Sources
- US charges Sinaloa governor and other Mexican officials with drug …
- Mexico charges prosecutor with treason over US involvement in …
