NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials were charged with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in a U.S. indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York, accused of aiding in the massive importation of illicit narcotics into the United States.<\/p>\n
Some officials were members of Mexico\u2019s progressive ruling party, Morena, posing a political conundrum for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum<\/a> as she seeks to offset mounting pressures<\/a> from the Trump administration. Some of those politicians called the indictment a political attack on their party.<\/p>\n U.S. federal officials announced the charges in a news release. None of the defendants were in custody, but Mexico\u2019s government said shortly afterward that it had received multiple extradition requests from the U.S. without identifying those requested. It did not say how it would respond.<\/p>\n Morena party members indicted<\/p>\n The 10 people charged in Manhattan federal court are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, including Rub\u00e9n Rocha Moya, 76, who has been governor of Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa state since November 2021.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n AP AUDIO: Mexican officials charged with importing massive quantities of drugs into US\n <\/p>\n AP correspondent Julie Walker reports Mexican officials have been charged with importing massive quantities of drugs into the U.S.<\/p>\n Charges against Moya included narcotics importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, along with another conspiracy count. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years behind bars.<\/p>\n Rocha was a staunch ally of Sheinbaum\u2019s mentor, former President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador<\/a>. The governor enthusiastically backed the ex-president\u2019s \u201cHugs, Not Bullets\u201d policy, which involved avoiding direct confrontation with powerful drug cartels. L\u00f3pez Obrador built a political platform by railing against endemic corruption plaguing Mexican politics.<\/p>\n Rocha, the highest profile official charged, said he \u201ccategorically and completely rejects\u201d the accusations as baseless and called them an \u201cattack\u201d on Mexico\u2019s ruling party and its leaders. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is part of a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico\u2019s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty,<\/a> \u201d he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. \u201cWe will show them that this slander doesn\u2019t have any sort of foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n Later in the day, he told reporters that he planned to stay in Sinaloa and wasn\u2019t worried.<\/p>\n Ties to Sinaloa Cartel<\/p>\n Some of those named, according to the indictment, have themselves participated in the Sinaloa Cartel\u2019s campaign of violence and retribution.<\/p>\n Those charged included a Mexican senator, a Sinaloa state deputy attorney general, a former Sinaloa secretary of public security, a former deputy director of the Sinaloa State Police and the mayor of Culiacan.<\/p>\n According to the indictment, the defendants shielded cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution, fed the cartel with sensitive law enforcement and military information, directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies to protect drug loads and let the cartel commit brutal drug-related violence without consequence. In return, it said, the defendants received millions of dollars in drug money. <\/p>\n The indictment alleged that they were closely aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel faction known as \u201cLos Chapitos,\u201d which is run by the sons of Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n<\/a>, the ex-cartel leader now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.<\/p>\n Authorities said the defendants played critical roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the U.S. The Sinaloa Cartel is among eight Latin American crime groups designated as terrorist organizations<\/a> by the U.S. government. <\/p>\n \u201cAs the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll,\u201d U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release. <\/p>\n The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as \u201cEl Chapo,\u201d was particularly notable because the governor was embroiled in a scandal in 2024 involving the Sinaloa Cartel. His name was published in a letter written by a then-Sinaloa Cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders<\/a> of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement<\/a> in the U.S. In the letter, the capo said that when he was kidnapped he believed he was on his way to meet with Rocha.<\/p>\n In the years since, the cartel\u2019s two warring factions have ravaged the northern Mexican state in their struggle for territorial control.<\/p>\n Among those indicted, at least three officials \u2014 Rocha, the mayor of Sinaloa\u2019s capital, and a senator \u2014 were affiliated with Sheinbaum\u2019s party, Morena. A number of other officials held positions unaffiliated with Mexican parties.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time the U.S. has brought drug trafficking charges against ranking Mexican officials. Genaro Garc\u00eda Luna \u2014 a former Mexican public security secretary under former President Felipe Calder\u00f3n \u2014 was convicted by a U.S. court and sentenced to 38 years in prison after he was accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. He denied the allegations and is appealing his conviction.<\/p>\n Another balancing act for Sheinbaum<\/p>\n The indictment unsealed Wednesday come after U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson last week said that the U.S. administration would launch an anti-corruption campaign targeting Mexican officials he said were linked to organized crime.<\/p>\n \u201cCorruption not only hinders progress, it distorts it. It increases costs, weakens competition, and erodes the trust upon which markets depend. It is not a problem without victims,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum responded Monday by saying her government has not seen \u201cany evidence\u201d of the charges of corruption.<\/p>\n \u201cAny investigation in the United States against any person in Mexico must have evidence reviewed by the (Mexican) Attorney General\u2019s Office,\u201d Sheinbaum said.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum\u2019s government has already detained several local officials across Mexico in its ongoing crackdown against the cartels, fueled by pressure by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n The indictment has once again forced the Mexican leader to walk a political tightrope, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who specializes in organized crime.<\/p>\n If Sheinbaum doesn\u2019t go after Rocha, it will put strain on relations with the U.S. ahead of renegotiations of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. crucial to the Mexican economy, the analyst said. If she does arrest him, \u201cit carries tremendous consequences for her politically\u201d ahead of next year\u2019s midterm elections in Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cIs she going to move to arrest Gov. Rocha and the other eight indicted politicians and attempt to extradite him to the United States? This is certainly what the United States wants,\u201d Felbab-Brown said.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n This story has been corrected to show the scandal that embroiled Rocha was in 2024, not 2023.<\/p>\n Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Mar\u00eda Verza and Fabiola S\u00e1nchez in Mexico City and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials were charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,167614,1017,3830,2356,14271,11981,2302,12,22048,266922,793,3073,18485,266921,3140,26,20445,3828,2005,1999,3,3833,111,29952,266920,1022,1059,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,965],"class_list":["post-614857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador","tag-arizona","tag-az-state-wire","tag-california","tag-central-america","tag-claudia-sheinbaum","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-drug-crimes","tag-felipe-caldern","tag-general-news","tag-indictments","tag-jay-clayton","tag-joaquin-guzman-loera","tag-latin-america","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-government","tag-new-mexico","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nm-state-wire","tag-politics","tag-ronald-johnson","tag-rubn-rocha-moya","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}