MEXICO CITY, MAY 1, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Before the US government accused Mexican politician Ruben Rocha Moya of narcotrafficking ties this week, he was linked to the capture of a notorious Mexican druglord in the United States.

In July 2024, authorities in El Paso, Texas, suddenly arrested Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, longtime leader of the Sinaloa cartel, along with two sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the co-cartel boss who has been in prison in the United States for almost a decade.

In a letter published from US prison days later, El Mayo said he was "kidnapped" and betrayed by Guzman's sons, alleging that they had called for a meeting with Sinaloa Governor Rocha Moya to smooth over political problems in the northwestern state.

But the plane carrying El Mayo landed in El Paso in the United States, instead of Sinaloa.

His capture unleashed a war between factions of the notorious cartel that left thousands dead or disappeared.

Rocha Moya quickly rejected any ties to the drug trade, arguing he was in the United States on the day of the supposed meeting. "We are not complicit with anyone," he said.

Then-president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an ally of current leader Claudia Sheinbaum, defended Rocha Moya and channeled his wrath towards the United States, whose capture of El Mayo he blamed for the subsequent war in Sinaloa between rival factions.

"You can't act that way," Lopez Obrador said in a press conference at the time, attacking El Mayo's controversial capture.

Rocha Moya "is really close to Lopez Obrador, he's been friends with him for decades, he campaigned with him," David Mora, analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, told AFP.

-A 'very complex' position-

On Wednesday, the US Justice Department unveiled charges against Rocha Moya and nine other current and former officials, accusing them of working primarily with the faction of the Sinaloa cartel tied to Guzman to traffic "massive quantities" of narcotics to the United States.

The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York accuses Rocha Moya of receiving help from "El Chapo's" sons, known as "Chapitos," to become governor.

"In exchange, both before and after he became governor, Rocha Moya allegedly attended meetings with the Chapitos, at which he promised to protect the Chapitos as they distributed massive quantities of drugs to the United States," the indictment states.

The governor denied the drug charges "categorically and absolutely" in a statement on X.

The 76-year-old Rocha Moya was born in Badiraguato, the Sinaloan village where the Guzman clan is from. A teacher by profession, he was consistently active in left-leaning parties, balancing politics and academic pursuits.

He became a lawmaker at the state level in the 1980s, the rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in the 1990s, then a senator allied with Lopez Obrador in 2018.

The former left-leaning president was a crucial supporter of Rocha Moya's successful gubernatorial campaign in 2021.

Politician Mario Zamora, who ran against Rocha Moya in that election, claimed after his loss that organized crime had influenced the voting.

There was "very clear interference, documented with all the evidence, where organized crime forcefully supported a political project," Zamora told Mexican media on Thursday.

The criminals "became owners of a state," the current congressional deputy said.

The analyst Mora stressed that Rocha Moya's closeness with Lopez Obrador leaves Sheinbaum in a "very complex" position that may be her "most difficult" moment in 19 months as president.

US President Donald Trump has been pressuring Mexico to crack down on narcotrafficking, and Mexico, Canada and the United States are renegotiating a trilateral trade agreement that Trump has fiercely criticized.

"They are making Sheinbaum choose between her party and Trump, and the costs are high in both cases," Mora said.