US charges Mexican governor with drug trafficking

The US Justice Department on Wednesday charged the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa and other officials with drug trafficking.

The US attorney for the Southern District of New York said 10 officials, including Governor Ruben Rocha Moya, are accused of working with the Sinaloa cartel to distribute “massive quantities” of narcotics to the United States.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said it received extradition requests from the United States for “various people,” without disclosing their identity.

The governor denied the drug charges “categorically and absolutely” in a statement on X.

“This attack isn’t only against me, it’s against the Fourth Transformation,” Rocha Moya said, referring to Mexico’s governing, left-leaning Morena party, which has been in power since 2018.

Rocha Moya has governed the conflictive state of Sinaloa since 2021. It has been battered by a war between two factions of the cartel of the same name that has left thousands dead.

The officials accused alongside Rocha Moya include a senator for Morena, the municipal president of the state capital of Culiacan, and the vice prosecutor for the state attorney general’s office.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of six Mexican narcotrafficking groups designated as foreign terrorist Organizations by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

AFP

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