The network of companies linked to the sons and associates of Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa currently on leave, became a web of public contracts, rigged bidding processes, and resource triangulation that is now under investigation by Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) and by U.S. authorities.
Rocha Moya. All in the family.
Beyond the accusations regarding his alleged collusion with the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya placed a group of allies in key positions throughout the state. This group took control of the bureaucratic apparatus and conducted business under the protection of political power. In addition to hiring companies created by associates of his sons and son-in-law, the state government allegedly organized tailor-made bidding processes for companies that redirected part of the public funds toward businesses owned by the governor’s sons.
This network of companies, led by Rubén, José Jesús, and Ricardo Rocha Ruiz, is currently under investigation by the United States government. As a result, Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) launched investigations into the companies owned by the governor’s sons and ordered financial institutions throughout Mexico to freeze the bank accounts of Rocha Ruiz and his nine co-defendants as a preventive measure. However, on May 18, the UIF emphasized that these actions “do not constitute a final determination.”
Among the partners of the Rocha Ruiz companies—named Constructora Chocosa, Stare IT Services, Construcciones Suaqui, Grupo Rofcar, A&R Inyecta Soluciones, A&R Soluciones y Estadísticas, Agronegocios y Servicios El Águila del Norte, and Chocosa Ranch—is José Carlos Cárdenas Mellado. He was appointed director of the Tax Administration Service of the State of Sinaloa (SATES) in 2024 and was identified by Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) as one of Rocha Moya’s connections with Los Chapitos, as revealed by Proceso in its sixteenth edition.
Another associate is Luis Manuel Mercado Rosales, alternate president of the Public Works Committee of the Municipal Water and Sewer Board of Mazatlán (JUMAPAM), an institution that received 198 million pesos from the Sinaloa government during the first five months of 2026. This figure emerged from a review conducted by Proceso of thousands of agreements and contracts awarded by the Rocha administration between 2021 and 2024 and during 2026, all available through Mexico’s National Transparency Platform (PNT). Curiously, contracts for works and services awarded in 2025 are not available on the platform.
According to a report by N+ published on May 6, the government of Rubén Rocha handed control of JUMAPAM, as well as the municipal water boards of Culiacán and Guamúchil, to operators linked to Los Chapitos.
In the construction company Chocosa, the Rocha family shares ownership with Francisco Javier Barrón Sandoval, whose children have held positions in the Sinaloa state administration under Rocha’s government. One of them, Francisco Javier Barrón Aguayo, was appointed Undersecretary of Sustainable Development within the Ministry of Welfare and Sustainable Development in February of this year, in a department then headed by Omar López Campos, the Senate substitute for Enrique Inzunza Cázarez—another individual accused alongside Rocha in the United States.
Coincidence or not, Barrón Aguayo was also a partner in Grupo del Siaric 2019, a company dedicated to salt commercialization, alongside Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, Rocha Moya’s godson and the mayor of Culiacán currently on leave, who has also been accused by U.S. authorities of working for Los Chapitos. The third partner in the company, Jorge Miguel Morales Donada, is the brother of María del Carmen Morales Donada, Secretary of Public Works and Services of Culiacán.
Eduardo Aguirre Medina, administrative director of the State Health Services—a government institution that, together with the DIF social welfare agency, awarded contracts to the network of companies and associates linked to Rocha Moya’s sons—is a man whose career began in leftist activism. He was a student and teacher at rural teachers’ colleges during the 1970s, when he was connected to the militant Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico. Later, he developed his career at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) and rose within the PRD party in the late 1990s when the party was led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Government Blindness
The allegations regarding these business networks in Sinaloa are not new within the state.
In November 2020, during the struggle for Morena’s gubernatorial nomination, politician Julio Cahue Heras of the Progressive Social Networks party filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s Office. He accused Rubén Rocha Moya, then a Morena senator, of influence peddling due to public contracts worth 64.66 million pesos awarded to Constructora Chocosa during the administrations of PRI governors Jesús Aguilar Padilla and Quirino Ordaz Coppel, both of whom Rocha had advised.
Other cases involving the allocation of public funds to companies within this network were documented by journalists in Sinaloa—including Aarón Ibarra of Proceso, as well as Marcos Vizcarra, Sibely Cañedo, Adrián López, and the team at Ríodoce. However, these reports were ignored by the federal government and the ruling party for five years, just as allegations regarding the involvement of armed men in benefiting Rocha Moya during the 2021 elections, or the murder of Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda during the kidnapping of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in July 2024, were also ignored.
Last year, the media outlet Xpectro exposed, through an extensive investigative report based in part on U.S. documents and records from Mexico’s Tax Administration Service (SAT), the widespread simulation that allegedly characterized the awarding of public works contracts in Sinaloa. According to the investigation, a group of 23 companies divided contracts among themselves through nearly identical bids, sometimes differing by only a few cents.
The companies were accused of delivering poorly constructed projects, including the El Quelite bridge, awarded to one of the companies in this network called Grobson. The bridge collapsed three weeks before its scheduled inauguration date.
Source: proceso
