Retired General Gerardo Mérida Sánchez, the former Secretary of Security for Sinaloa, no longer appears in the custody of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) as of August 11, according to federal records.
He had been detained for three months over allegations of ties to “Los Chapitos”; the system’s online portal provided no details regarding his current status or whether he had been transferred to another facility. Mérida Sánchez, 66, surrendered to U.S. authorities in May, having been initially arrested in Arizona on May 5. He was subsequently transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where the legal proceedings against him are taking place.
As of Monday, there has been no public announcement regarding whether the change in his registry status resulted from a transfer, an administrative change in custody, or negotiations related to the judicial proceedings. The former official had a hearing scheduled for August 4 before Judge Katherine Polk Failla, but the proceeding was postponed indefinitely.
This postponement occurred prior to his removal from the BOP custody registry. U.S. prosecutors charged Mérida Sánchez with conspiracy to import narcotics, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess such weaponry.
The charges were filed in the Southern District of New York and carry a maximum penalty of up to 40 years in prison. Mérida Sánchez served as Sinaloa’s Secretary of Security from September 2023 to December 2024 and is among the officials and former officials whose extradition the United States has requested from Mexico due to alleged ties to Los Chapitos.
