The misfortune of the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, did not begin on April 28, with the requests for his provisional arrest for extradition purposes, as well as that of nine other current and former officials, sent by the United States Department of Justice to the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE). Rather, it began to take shape on July 25, 2024, with the letter that Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada addressed to the public.
In this letter—which is now part of the federal case files in the neighboring country to the north—“El Mayo” Zambada not only denounced his kidnapping but also directly implicated key figures in Sinaloan politics, including Rocha Moya. The letter was a strategic move by his defense to portray the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel as a victim of betrayal and kidnapping, thus attempting to influence the legal proceedings he faces in U.S. courts.
Ismael Zambada stated in that letter (which his lawyer, Frank Pérez, distributed to media outlets in the United States and Mexico, such as the Los Angeles Times and the weekly Ríodoce) that on the day of his capture—July 25—he would be attending a meeting with Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, former rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), Joaquín Guzmán López, and Iván Guzmán Salazar.
In the letter, “El Mayo” explains that Joaquín Guzmán López invited him to a meeting to help resolve the differences between Rocha Moya and Melesio Cuén and to decide who should lead the UAS. Iván Guzmán Salazar would also be present at the meeting.
He also details that on July 25th, he attended the meeting at the Huertos del Pedregal ranch, where the rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), Joaquín Guzmán López, and José Rosario Heras, commander of the Sinaloa State Judicial Police, were also present.
He adds that Guzmán López asked him to follow him and led him to a room where he was ambushed. “A group of men assaulted me, threw me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head.” He says that he was then taken to a private plane bound for El Paso, Texas, where he was eventually arrested.
Although “El Mayo” did not present evidence of Rocha Moya’s presence at the meeting, he highlights a detail in the letter that was later proven true: the location where Melesio Cuén was murdered on July 25, 2024, the same day as the arrest of the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder.
At the time, the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) asserted that Cuén’s murder occurred during a robbery at a gas station in Culiacán. They even released a video of the attack, but Ismael Zambada contradicted this version, revealing in his letter that Cuén was killed at the same ranch where he himself had been kidnapped.
However, the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) confirmed on October 20, 2024, that Cuén was killed at the Huertos del Pedregal ranch several hours after the gas station attack shown in the video, refuting the Sinaloa FGE’s version of events.
Rocha Moya denied Ismael Zambada’s accusations, stating that he was never at the aforementioned meeting; he even said that he was out of the country that day. “If they told him (Zambada) that I was going to be there, well, they lied. And if he believed them, well, he fell into the trap. Right? He had no reason to go,” he stated.
However, “Los Chapitos”—who are potentially operating as protected witnesses—dealt a devastating blow against the governor of Sinaloa, who was on leave. The indictment, declassified at the end of April 2026, is explicit: The Department of Justice states that, in 2021, Rocha Moya allegedly met with Iván Archivaldo and Ovidio Guzmán to agree that the Sinaloa Cartel would guarantee his electoral victory in the state in exchange for placing loyal officials in key security and administrative positions.
The statements no longer come from external informants, but from the very protagonists of the pact. Thus, what began as a leak or a “rumor” has mutated into a formal indictment from the United States Department of Justice based on hard data and devastating implications.
Several high-ranking Mexican politicians are undoubtedly extremely nervous and uneasy about the possibility that “El Mayo” Zambada will “sing” everything he knows to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding decades of bribery paid to police officers, military personnel, and politicians to protect his operations, as he already admitted in his testimony.
The concern gripping an undetermined number of politicians and officials at all levels stems from the possibility that U.S. authorities have already unraveled the thread that would expose their “unconfessed relationships” with the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for large sums of money that financed their political campaigns—information that “El Mayo” must have well documented.
The co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel has nothing left to lose and might even gain a “deal” with authorities in the neighboring country to the north to become a “protected witness,” as has happened with other drug lords. Judge Brian M. Cogan (the same judge who sentenced “El Chapo” Guzmán and Genaro García Luna) is expected to sentence him to life imprisonment for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl, as well as for money laundering and firearms offenses.
The sentencing hearing for “El Mayo” has been postponed twice at the request of his defense. The hearing is tentatively scheduled for May 18 of this year.
Under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration, Rocha Moya was forced to request a temporary leave of absence from his position as governor, while the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has opened investigations into the matter. The Sinaloa case has become a Gordian knot of Mexican politics, where institutional credibility, violence, and impossible “coincidences” are intertwined.
If the governor on leave is extradited or tried, it’s not just one man who falls; it’s the narrative that organized crime and political power in the northwest of the country operate on separate tracks. The U.S. justice system seems to have a clear understanding of the hierarchy: In Sinaloa, the dividing line between the Governor’s Palace and the hideout in the mountains has long been nonexistent.
In this case, the popular saying, “When you see your neighbor’s beard being shaved, wet your own,” fits perfectly. Surely, in the coming weeks, we will see more Mexican politicians “wetting their beards.”
Source: eleconomista
