The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a sweeping indictment charging 10 Mexican political figures and security officers with drug trafficking on Friday, triggering a political crisis in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. The highest-ranking official named, Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, is a longtime ally of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and a member of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party.
In a video address released at midnight on Friday, Rocha denied the allegations directly. “My conscience is clear,” he said. “To my people and to my family, I can look you in the eye because I have never betrayed you, and I never will.” He characterized the U.S. indictment as “false and malicious,” calling it a political attack on the Morena movement. Despite his denials, Rocha requested a 30-day leave of absence from the governorship he has held for six years to cooperate with the Mexican government’s investigation.
The mayor of the state capital, Culiacán, Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, also announced he would step down and denied the charges. A third defendant, Senator Enrique Inzunza, also a member of Morena, said he would remain in the Senate while mounting his defense.
The departures carry immediate legal consequences. As serving officials, both Rocha and Gámez Mendívil had held immunity from criminal prosecution. Arturo Zaldívar, a former president of Mexico’s Supreme Court who now advises President Sheinbaum, posted on X that by temporarily leaving their posts, “they can be detained like any person.”
The Sinaloa state congress acted on Saturday, appointing Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde, Rocha’s former secretary of government, as interim governor for the 30-day leave period. Bonilla is a political ally of the outgoing governor.
The indictment places President Sheinbaum in a delicate position. She must manage pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, which has threatened military action against drug cartels on Mexican territory, while honoring her party’s commitments to sovereignty and anti-corruption. Sheinbaum said she would not defend anyone found to have committed a crime, but she drew a firm line on jurisdiction. “We will never subordinate ourselves because this is a matter of the dignity of the Mexican people,” she said, insisting that any trial resulting from “irrefutable” evidence gathered by Mexican federal authorities would take place in Mexico.
The Mexican attorney general’s office said it would not arrest the accused officials pending the outcome of its investigation, despite U.S. requests.
The accusations against Rocha are not the first to surface. In 2024, he was named in a published letter from a then-Sinaloa cartel capo who said he was on his way to meet the governor when he was abducted by rivals and handed over to U.S. authorities. Rocha was born in the same town as the notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
For some residents of Culiacán, the U.S. intervention was a welcome development in a state beset by cartel violence. “We are in an ungovernable state where the same party and the same governor essentially gave free rein to what has become a violent situation,” said Raquel Campos, a 35-year-old doctor. “Unfortunately it was another country that had to take action.”
Sergio Estrella, a 42-year-old shopkeeper, described the alleged collusion between drug traffickers and senior officials as “an open secret.” He added, “The government needs to take a different tack, to recognize how deeply drug trafficking is embedded in politics.”
Rocha had been a key figure in implementing the “hugs not bullets” approach to organized crime pioneered by former President López Obrador, a strategy of avoiding direct confrontation with cartels that Sheinbaum has since abandoned. In his video statement, Rocha insisted he would not be used to harm the Morena movement, which he said “has improved the lives of millions of Mexican men and women.”
The remaining defendants have either stepped aside or, as in Senator Inzunza’s case, signaled an intent to continue serving while fighting the charges. The case is expected to intensify the ongoing diplomatic friction between the U.S. and Mexico over how to combat the powerful drug cartels that operate across the shared border.