US Indictments Give Mexico’s Sheinbaum an Opportunity
That was then: Sinaloa governor Ruben Rocha greets the newly elected Claudia Sheinbaum next to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on August 10, 2024.
Photographer: Rashide Frias/AFP/Getty Images
The US indictments against Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha and other top local figures on drug charges were bold, dramatic and disruptive — but hardly unexpected.
Rocha, a senior member of Mexico’s ruling Morena party, has long been in the sights of US law enforcement, particularly since the mysterious extraction of fellow Sinaloan Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of the world’s most notorious drug lords, to the US in July 2024. Those cinematographic events also culminated with the assassination of one of Rocha’s main political rivals, triggering a brutal war between narco factions in Sinaloa that has already claimed more than 3,000 lives. All of it unfolding about 600 miles from the US-Mexico border.