United States prosecutors have filed charges against Ruben Rocha Moya, the governor of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, and nine current and former officials with ties to the Sinaloa drug cartel, in a move that could strain relations between the two countries.
An indictment filed Wednesday in New York alleges that Rocha Moya, 76, and nine other people worked with cartel leaders to move large quantities of narcotics into the United States in exchange for political favors and bribes.
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Prosecutors say Rocha Moya’s 2021 election campaign received support when members of the cartel’s “Chapitos” faction allegedly helped ensure his victory. According to the indictment, cartel operatives kidnapped and intimidated opposition candidates and stole ballots cast for their rivals to help ensure their victory.
Authorities said the scheme was aided by another defendant, Enrique Díaz Vega, who later became Rocha Moya’s secretary of administration and finance, who allegedly provided the cartel with a list of names and addresses of opponents in order to pressure them to drop out of the race.
The US Justice Department said most of the suspects were linked to the sons of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Terrence Cole said, “The Sinaloa Cartel is not just trafficking deadly drugs, it is a designated terrorist organization that relies on corruption and bribery to generate violence and profit.”
“This indictment exposes a deliberate effort to undermine public institutions and put American lives at risk,” Cole said in a statement. “The defendants allegedly used positions of trust to protect cartel operations.”
Rocha Moya has rejected the allegations, calling them baseless and without evidence. In a statement, he said the allegations were part of a broader political attack, not only against him, but also on the Morena movement and its leadership.
The state governor also told Sinaloa residents that he would face the claims “with dignity” and demonstrate that they have no basis.
Translation: I unequivocally and completely reject the charges brought against me by the Southern District of New York Federal Prosecutor’s Office as having no truth or basis whatsoever. And it will be demonstrated with full force at the appropriate time.
The Mexican government said in a statement that the US documents requesting the arrest and possible extradition lack sufficient evidence.
Rare steps signal change in US strategy
Prosecutions against current senior Mexican politicians are rare, and the case may point to a change in Washington’s approach to dealing with drug cartels, with increased attention on alleged ties between organized crime and political figures.
“This is certainly a change in American strategy of going against an incumbent government official,” said Wanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-state armed groups at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, DC.
“It has long been considered a very big step forward, almost a ‘nuclear option,'” he said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more prosecutions going forward,” Felbab-Brown told Al Jazeera.
He described the case as part of a broader campaign against alleged crime-politics nexus in Sinaloa, saying, “Although Rocha is the eye of the storm, the storm is much broader than that.”
He said that among those convicted, at least three officials, including Rocha and a Mexican senator, were linked to President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party, while others had played roles outside formal party structures.
Translation: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received requests for provisional arrest for extradition purposes, which will be forwarded to the Attorney General’s Office. No evidence is attached to the documents.”
‘A political headache for Sheinbaum’
The case increases pressure on Sheinbaum, given Rocha Moya’s ties to the ruling Morena party and his close ties to former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Longtime Morena leader and former senator Rocha Moya won the Sinaloa governorship in 2021 and remains politically aligned with López Obrador.
“This is a real political headache for Sheinbaum,” Felbab-Brown said, adding that how she responds in the coming days, including taking action against the governor, could have significant diplomatic and domestic consequences.
“If it doesn’t take action against him, including potentially arresting him or extraditing him to the US, the US will feel very isolated at the time of the USMCA negotiations,” he said, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
“If she takes action against him, it could weaken his ability to control the Morena party and perhaps even jeopardize his political position,” he said.
The case comes as Mexico’s government has stepped up efforts to confront powerful drug cartels, including a series of high-profile operations targeting organized crime figures in recent months, including the killing by security forces of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, who led the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
