Shocking Turn of Events: Mexican Governor and Mayor Resign Amid U.S. Drug Trafficking Indictments

Two members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s political party in Sinaloa state have announced they will temporarily leave their positions. This decision comes in response to a significant indictment by the United States, which accuses them, along with eight other politicians and security officials, of drug trafficking—sending shockwaves through Mexico’s political scene.

In a brief video statement released at midnight on Friday, Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, the most senior figure implicated in the indictment, rejected allegations that he shielded the Sinaloa cartel and facilitated its drug smuggling operations into the United States in return for millions in bribes.

“My conscience is clear,” declared the 76-year-old Rocha, who has been a staunch supporter of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “I can face my people and my family with confidence, knowing I have never betrayed them and never will.”

Despite his firm denial, Rocha announced he would step aside temporarily from his gubernatorial duties, a role he has held for six years, to focus on countering what he describes as “false and malicious” accusations and to assist with the Mexican government’s investigation.

Similarly, Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, the mayor of Culiacán, who is also named in the indictment, has decided to take a leave of absence while contesting the charges. Following a special vote on Saturday, the state’s local congress appointed Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde, an ally of Rocha and former state secretary of government, as the interim governor.

As governor and mayor, Rocha and Gámez Mendívil enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution, requiring Mexico’s Congress to first impeach them if they are to face charges. Their decision to take temporary leave rather than resign allows them to retain that immunity.

Sheinbaum has struggled to strike a balance between the interests of her progressive Morena party and pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to step up the fight against cartels.

In a nod to her party’s anti-corruption platform, Sheinbaum said she wouldn’t defend anyone found to have committed a crime.

But she vigorously defended Mexico’s sovereignty, vowing that if federal authorities uncovered “irrefutable” evidence linking the 10 indicted officials to cartel crime, the accused would be tried in Mexico, not the U.S. – a move that risks backlash from an American administration that has threatened military action against cartels on Mexican soil.

“We will never subordinate ourselves because this is a matter of the dignity of the Mexican people,” she said Friday.

Pending investigation, the Mexican attorney general’s office said it would not arrest Rocha or the other accused officials, as requested by the U.S.

Rocha, a point person for the hands-off “hugs not bullets approach to dealing with organized crime that López Obrador pioneered and Sheinbaum has since ditched, insisted in the video that the indictment represents a political attack on Morena.

“I will not allow myself to be used to harm the movement to which I belong – one that has improved the lives of millions of Mexican men and women,” he said.

Born in the same town as the notorious Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo,” Rocha has found himself embroiled in similar scandals before. In 2024, he was named in a published letter written by a then-Sinaloa cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction and handed off to U.S. law enforcement. In the letter, the capo said that he was on his way to meet Rocha when he was abducted.