MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is vowing an independent investigation of 10 current and former officials 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 on Thursday 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 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. pressures 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 an arrest.
A political rupture
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 on Thursday said that Mexican prosecutors would investigate the cases and gather their own information to “determine whether there is evidence establishing that the allegations made by U.S. authorities have a legal basis for requesting arrest warrants.”
The president previously said that she had seen no evidence to back up the U.S. allegations. She added that 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.
‘Serving an interventionist foreign policy’
The accusations against the governor of Sinaloa ramp up already mounting pressures on the Trump administration on Mexico, as many analysts note they haven’t seen the U.S. target a high-ranking official still in office.
Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor the Mexican Center for Research and Economic Education, the move marks “a foreign government provoking a political earthquake in Mexico” to back its own political rhetoric around drug-trafficking and intervention in Latin America.
“U.S. justice is currently serving an interventionist foreign policy with specific objectives in Mexico,” he added.
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 that held positions not affiliated with any political party. 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.
Mexico investigates
The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as “El Chapo,” 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 night that Mexico’s government would only approve of the extradition if there is sufficient evidence, which they so far haven’t been provided by Washington.
He noted that sitting officials would need to be impeached before any major actions by Mexican authorities to lift their legal immunity and criticized the U.S. release of details about the case, calling them “detrimental to the confidential nature of criminal proceedings.”
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Associated Press journalist Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report from Mexico City.
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