From Sinaloa to New York: How the Allegations Against Rubén Rocha Moya Came About 

On April 29, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York charged the current (though currently on leave) governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, and nine other state officials with drug trafficking due to their alleged ties to organized crime.

According to U.S. investigations, these Mexican officials colluded with the Sinaloa Cartel. But where did this accusation come from? Here are the details.

Rocha Moya’s name surfaced in a superseding indictment against alleged members of “Los Chapitos” who have already been sentenced—including a fentanyl cook identified as Silvano Francisco Mariano, alias “El Rayo.”

The matter is part of a criminal case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), in which Rubén Rocha Moya’s name appears multiple times.

Other Sinaloa officials named in the document include Gerardo Mérida Sánchez—Sinaloa’s former Secretary of Security, who voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities in May 2026—and Senator Enrique Inzunza, who recently left the Morena parliamentary group to become an independent legislator.

Both politicians are accused of receiving financial and operational support from Los Chapitos to secure elected office and subsequently providing protection for the group’s illicit businesses.

Rocha Moya, specifically, is accused of allegedly protecting and expanding Los Chapitos’ drug trafficking operations through political alliances. The accused participated in a criminal conspiracy with the cartel to import massive quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States.

The U.S. government asserts that the ten Mexican officials shielded cartel leaders from investigations, arrests, and legal proceedings. What did the officials receive in return? In addition to providing sensitive information from law enforcement and military authorities to cartel members and former narco-allies to facilitate criminal activities, [they] ordered state and local police personnel to protect drug shipments—whether stored in Mexico or in transit to the United States—or allowed cartel members to commit acts of brutal violence related to drug trafficking without facing consequences.

In exchange, the accused received millions of dollars in proceeds from the Sinaloa Cartel’s drug trafficking operations. One of the allegations noted in the document, for instance, is that Rocha Moya was elected governor of Sinaloa in June 2021 with the cartel’s support; to bolster the election effort, cartel leaders ordered the theft of ballots cast for opposing candidates.

The U.S. Department of Justice has now secured sentences for five individuals in the massive case against the Sinaloa Cartel in New York. This includes “El Rayo”—mentioned earlier—who was sentenced in August 2026 as a key figure in the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl.

Those sentenced to date are Juan Pablo Lozano (“El Camarón”), Julio Marín González, Sergio Duarte Frías, Ana Gabriela Rubio Sea (“La Gabi”), and the aforementioned Francisco Mariano Rayo. All of them voluntarily admitted their responsibility for the acts after negotiating plea agreements with prosecutors.

Furthermore, they all acknowledged that the faction led by “El Chapo” Guzmán and his sons operated out of Sinaloa to produce and traffic fentanyl from at least 2020 to 2025. U.S. prosecutors are currently working on additional agreements with other individuals implicated in these charges who have already been arrested or are facing prosecution in the same criminal case.

Among them is the state’s former Secretary of Administration and Finance, Enrique Díaz Vega. A sentencing hearing is also scheduled for September 29 for Carlos Omar Félix Gutiérrez—a criminal who was once on the DEA’s list of the ten most wanted traffickers and who confessed in May to participating in fentanyl trafficking operations from Sinaloa.

Both Félix and the other already-sentenced individuals voluntarily confirmed the U.S. prosecution’s narrative: that fentanyl trafficking and money laundering operations—in which they participated—were carried out from Sinaloa during a period coinciding with Rocha Moya’s administration. 

In the specific case of Félix Gutiérrez, he admitted that, in partnership with the faction led by “Los Chapitos,” he entered into agreements to obtain precursors and substances from China for the manufacture of fentanyl.

He also confessed that, at least until early 2023, he and three other defendants—including “El Rayo”—established a network of laboratories serving the aforementioned criminal group, capable of producing over 100,000 fentanyl pills daily. In 2022, Ovidio Guzmán—one of El Chapo’s sons—reportedly ordered that the purity of the manufactured pills be tested on a woman, an act that allegedly caused her death.

Source: Milenio