MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is vowing an independent investigation of 10 current and former officials who have been indicted in the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons in connection
with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that she wouldn’t let foreign governments meddle in her country’s affairs to serve their own political purposes.
The indictment in New York on Wednesday charged a number of sitting officials in Mexico's northern state of Sinaloa, including members of Sheinbaum's progressive Morena party, with drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons. It fueled a political firestorm at a time when Sheinbaum has sought to offset U.S. pressure to crack down on cartels while appeasing her own base with a message of Mexican sovereignty.
Mexico's government said that it had seen an extradition request from the U.S. for 10 citizens and added that the request didn't provide enough evidence to warrant arrests.
The highest profile official implicated was Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, a top Morena official and close ally of Sheinbaum's mentor and predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum, who previously said she hadn't seen evidence to back up the U.S. allegations, said Thursday that Mexican prosecutors would investigate the cases and gather their own information to see whether there is enough evidence to back the U.S. claims.
She said she was ready to put her foot down if Mexican investigations find “no clear evidence” that those charged committed a crime.
“If it is evident that the Justice Department’s charges are politically motivated, let there be absolutely no doubt: under no circumstances will we allow a foreign government to interfere in decisions that are the exclusive prerogative of the Mexican people,” Sheinbaum said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has engaged more aggressively in Latin America than any president in recent decades, capturing Venezuela’s president in an overnight raid and pushing massive reforms in Venezuela, imposing an oil blockade on Cuba, getting involved in Argentine and Honduran elections and threatening military action on Mexican cartels.
U.S. involvement in Mexico has come under public scrutiny in recent weeks after two CIA agents died in a car crash following a counter-narcotics operation alongside state officials in northern Chihuahua. Sheinbaum has said the agents didn't have federal authorization to work in Mexico and that she doesn't want to see any similar incidents in the future, but also indicated she doesn't want conflict with the U.S. over the matter.
Sheinbaum has underscored Mexico's sovereignty to appease her populist base while also cracking down on drug cartels to maintain a strong relationship with the U.S. ahead of renegotiations of their free trade agreement this year. Trump has repeatedly offered to take military action on Mexican cartels, an intervention Sheinbaum has called “unnecessary.”
Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor at the Mexican Center for Research and Economic Education, said the U.S. indictment of a sitting Mexican governor represents a “political earthquake in Mexico," but is aimed at backing rhetoric in Washington to promote an “interventionist” policy in Latin America on combating drug trafficking.
Rocha, the governor, categorically rejected the accusations on Wednesday, writing on a social media post that they “lack any basis in truth.”
The indictment also charged the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital and a senator, both from Sheinbaum’s Morena party, and other officials. Rocha and other officials called it an attack on their left-leaning political movement.
According to the indictment, the defendants shielded Sinaloa 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.
The cartel is one of eight Latin American criminal groups that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.
The indictment of Rocha 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 of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement 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.
Mexico's Deputy Attorney General Ulises Lara said in a video released Wednesday that sitting officials would need to be impeached before any major action by Mexican authorities to lift their legal immunity. He criticized the U.S. release of details about their case, calling them “detrimental to the confidential nature of criminal proceedings.”
As part of her crackdown on cartels, Sheinbaum's government has detained local officials across Mexico involved in corruption. But security analyst David Saucedo said those actions so far haven't touched officials among Morena's political elite who may be suspected of ties to drug traffickers.
The government hasn't tried to investigate them, though the president has tried to persuade some of them to step down, Saucedo said. Sheinbaum can either “clean house” or face pressure from a U.S. administration eager to take action, he said.
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Associated Press journalist Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report from Mexico City.
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