Washington dealt an unprecedented blow to the already tense relationship with Mexico on Wednesday. The State Department formally accused the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of the Morena party, of working with the Los Chapitos cartel, the heirs of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, facilitating drug shipments to the United States and allowing them to appoint high-ranking officials in his government after they helped him win the 2021 election.
But Rocha Moya is only the most visible face.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York also indicted nine other current and former officials of the northern state for allegedly conspiring with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to export large quantities of narcotics across the border in exchange for bribes. U.S. authorities are seeking a severe sentence for all those involved: from 40 years to life imprisonment.
According to the indictment, the United States has portrayed the Sinaloa state government as an operational extension of the criminal group historically led by El Chapo and El Mayo Zambada, both currently imprisoned in the U.S. The followers of these two criminals are embroiled in a bloody fratricidal war. These are the officials and agents accused by Washington.
The governor emerged from the ranks of the democratic left-wing movements of the 1980s. He ran for governor of his state three times before finally winning in 2021 with the Morena party, founded by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Before becoming governor, he served as a senator for the same party.
The United States accuses him of winning the election with the support of Los Chapitos (the former leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel). To achieve this, according to the State Department document, the drug traffickers kidnapped and intimidated “opposition candidates.” As a reward, this faction of the Sinaloa Cartel was able to operate with the full cooperation of the state government. Furthermore, Rocha Moya held numerous meetings with them both as a candidate and as governor.
He is a senator for the Morena party representing Sinaloa. Before that, he had a distinguished career in the judiciary. He served as presiding magistrate of the Sinaloa State Supreme Court from 2016 to 2021. He was then appointed Secretary of Government under Rocha Moya. Three years later, in 2024, he was elected to the Senate.
The Department of Justice alleges that he met, along with his former boss, with Los Chapitos “and other cartel leaders.” It also asserts that he agreed to “specific plans” for the Morena administration to support and protect the criminals.
It is impossible to separate Juan de Dios Gámez’s political career from that of his mentor, Governor Rocha Moya. He began his career in various minor positions within the Sinaloa state government bureaucracy in the 2000s. He moved to Mexico City in 2018 to serve as an advisor to the governor when he was a senator.
The State Congress appointed him mayor of Sinaloa’s capital and most populous city in 2022 to replace Jesús Estrada Ferreiro. His predecessor, also from the Morena party, was removed from office amid corruption allegations and misogynistic statements. The indictment accuses Gámez of allowing the cartel to operate “without government interference” and of letting Los Chapitos operate unhindered within the municipality.
He served as the governor’s finance secretary from 2021 to 2024, when he resigned for personal reasons. Before entering politics, he worked in the private sector as a businessman involved in real estate and construction. U.S. authorities allege that during the gubernatorial campaign, he provided drug traffickers with “the names and addresses of Rocha Moya’s opponents” so they could “threaten and force” them to withdraw from the election.
Castro Zaavedra has worked at various levels within the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office. He has been the institution’s number two official since 2021. U.S. investigators allege that the lawyer received monthly bribes of up to $11,000 from Los Chapitos. These payments translated into absolute protection for Guzmán Loera’s heirs within the criminal organization. “[The deputy attorney general] informed them of law enforcement operations planned with U.S. backing,” according to the document made public this Wednesday.
He headed the state Attorney General’s Office’s police arm from 2017 to 2022. Almanza, like many others, according to the indictment, received bribes and worked to ensure his agents weakened the rivals of El Chapo’s sons in the region. “He issued arrest warrants against Los Chapitos’ enemies when they requested them and allowed shipments of chemicals used in fentanyl production to be transported through Sinaloa,” the State Department document states.
Source: elpais
