The indictment against Mexican politician Rubén Rocha Moya—accusing him of collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel—represents an unprecedented case involving the implication by the United States of a sitting governor; an event that strains relations between the two countries to a degree yet to be determined. This case stems directly from the criminal proceedings initiated against “Los Chapitos.”
This faction of the criminal organization—comprising the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and their followers—has been facing trial in the United States since April 2023. The ten individuals indicted last week—Rocha Moya, Senator Enrique Inzunza Cázerez, and a significant portion of Sinaloa’s security apparatus—are co-defendants in the same case as the brothers Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar (who remain at large), along with 24 other individuals linked to the group who are specifically accused of providing political protection in exchange for money and electoral victories.
The case is docketed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under the title “United States v. Guzmán Salazar” and commenced on April 4, 2023. In addition to the two sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, other key defendants include the late Óscar Noé Medina González—known as “El Panu”—one of Iván Archivaldo’s top lieutenants; Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas—known as “El Nini” or “El 09″—the faction’s security chief and the most recent individual to be extradited during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador; and Kun Jiang, a Chinese businessman accused of being one of the primary suppliers of chemical precursors used by the criminal organization to manufacture fentanyl. The charges are wide-ranging but include criminal enterprise, money laundering, and fentanyl trafficking.
The expanded indictment—adding Rocha Moya, Inzunza Cázerez, and other officials (including employees of the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office) as defendants—was filed on April 29, the same day the U.S. Department of Justice publicly announced the charges.
“While some of the defendants have collaborated with various drug traffickers, they have generally been more closely linked to a faction of the cartel, referred to herein as Los Chapitos. Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, and Ovidio Guzmán López are collectively referred to herein as the leaders of Los Chapitos,” the document states.
The content of the indictment against Rocha Moya and the other public officials describes several meetings—such as the one between Iván Archivaldo and Ovidio and Rocha Moya during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign, in which they allegedly promised to ensure his victory in exchange for appointing officials sympathetic to the cartel to the state administration; the meeting between Enrique Díaz Vega—who later served as Sinaloa’s Secretary of Administration and Finance—and Iván Archivaldo, Jesús Alfredo, and other high-ranking cartel members to hand over a list containing the names and addresses of Rocha Moya’s political opponents; and a post-election meeting between the governor-elect and Inzunza Cázarez with leaders of Los Chapitos to reach an agreement on how the cartel would gain control of the Sinaloa State Police in exchange for the support received during the campaign—among others.
This document constitutes a formal indictment presented before a United States grand jury—a group of randomly selected citizens to whom a case is presented, and who decide whether there is probable cause to proceed to trial—as has occurred in the case of Rocha Moya and the other defendants.
