Marco Antonio Almanza Avilés, the former head of the Investigative Police for the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office, was en route to Tijuana with the intention of surrendering to U.S. authorities when a phone call reportedly drastically altered his plans; this was revealed by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola in an opinion column.
Almanza Avilés is one of 10 current and former Sinaloan officials formally charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The indictment—signed by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton and certified on April 23, 2026—accuses him of receiving monthly bribes from the faction known as “Los Chapitos”—led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—in exchange for allowing the cartel to operate with total impunity in Sinaloa during the period he headed the Ministerial Police, between 2017 and November 2022.
The former official is identified in internal cartel ledgers by the code name “R1” and reportedly received approximately 300,000 Mexican pesos per month throughout his tenure. According to the indictment, the corrupt arrangement was originally brokered during a meeting held around 2017 or 2018 at one of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar’s ranches in Sinaloa, a meeting also attended by Ovidio Guzmán López.
According to information published by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, Almanza’s decision to seek a cooperation agreement with the U.S. justice system was not spontaneous.
It was triggered by a specific event: his appearance before the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) in Culiacán, which he attended accompanied by Dámaso Castro Zaavedra—the state’s Deputy Attorney General (currently on leave) and also a defendant in the same federal U.S. case.
