Mexico governor steps down over US trafficking allegations

The governor of a Mexican state who was accused by the United States of ties to drug trafficking said on Friday he was temporarily stepping down to facilitate investigations.

Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya and nine others were charged by the US Justice Department this week for working with the notorious Sinaloa cartel to distribute “massive quantities” of narcotics to the United States.

Rocha Moya, a member of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s left-leaning Morena party, has decried the allegations as “false and malicious.”

“I inform the people of Sinaloa that today I submitted to the State Congress my request for a temporary leave from the position of governor,” he said in a YouTube video late Friday.

Rocha Moya, who is close to former leftist president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has been governor of the northwestern state of Sinaloa since 2021.

Juan de Dios Gamez, the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan who was among those named by the US Justice Department, also announced that he would step down.

The two men leaving office no longer enjoy immunity and can be subject to investigation.

The resignations came after Sheinbaum demanded “solid and irrefutable” evidence from the United States.

Sheinbaum noted it was the first time that the United States had made narcotrafficking charges public against a sitting governor or other high-ranking official.

The stunning charges add to already strained diplomatic relations with US President Donald Trump’s administration, following the recent death of two US agents — reportedly CIA personnel — in connection with a drug bust operation.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of six Mexican narcotrafficking groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

Sheinbaum has faced pressure from Washington to accept US intervention, such as drone strikes or military personnel, to fight cartels.