Governor of Sinaloa Ruben Rocha Moya, in Mexico City, on October 1, 2024. CARL DE SOUZA / AFP
The governor of a Mexican state who was accused by the United States of ties to drug trafficking said, on Friday, May 1, that 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 allegedly working with the notorious Sinaloa cartel to distribute "massive quantities" of narcotics to the US.
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 on 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 the individuals named by the US Justice Department, also announced that he would step down.
