Mexico says its own attorney general will investigate allegations from U.S. federal prosecutors that several officials in the state of Sinaloa have, for years, aided drug traffickers.
The grand-jury indictment charges 10 current and former Sinaloa officials, including the sitting governor, with drug trafficking crimes. All face maximum penalties of life in prison.
U.S. prosecutors say those law enforcement and government officials have shielded cartel members in exchange for bribes and political favor.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that Mexican authorities will investigate to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to issue arrest warrants against the defendants. Sheinbaum said her government has received extradition requests from the United States.
“We’re not going to cover for anyone who has committed a crime,” Sheinbaum told reporters. “However, if clear evidence doesn’t exist, it’s obvious that the objective of the Department of Justice indictment is political.”
The indictment names members of Sheinbaum’s own political party. That includes the highest ranking defendant, current Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, who was a close ally of Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Rocha Moya and other defendants have denied any wrongdoing, and some have suggested the indictment is politically motivated against Mexico’s ruling Morena party.
The U.S. regularly prosecutes alleged cartel members, but much more rarely the politicians accused of shielding them, said Vanda Felbab-Brown with the Brookings Institution.
“It’s certainly a major escalation in U.S. pressure on Mexico,” Felbab-Brown said. “It’s a massive shot across the bow of corrupt relations in Mexico.”
In a statement, the DOJ said the indictment is the latest in a series of criminal indictments filed in the Southern District of New York targeting alleged cartel members and associates since 2023. Last summer, the former Mexican drug lord and co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, pleaded guilty in a different New York federal court.
Former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is currently serving life in prison in a maximum-security facility in Colorado.
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