{"id":22793,"date":"2026-04-30T20:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22793\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:45:28","slug":"a-defiant-sheinbaum-refuses-to-extradite-mexican-officials-on-u-s-drug-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22793\/","title":{"rendered":"A defiant Sheinbaum refuses to extradite Mexican officials on U.S. drug charges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the U.S. prosecution<\/a> of a sitting Mexican governor and other officials on drug trafficking charges as \u201cpolitical,\u201d and said Thursday that Mexico would not comply with Washington\u2019s demands that the accused be arrested and extradited to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not permitting a foreign government to say what is the future of Mexico,\u201d said Sheinbaum, who repeatedly assailed U.S. \u201cmeddling\u201d in the incendiary case.<\/p>\n

U.S. authorities have not submitted sufficient evidence to justify the arrests and detentions of anyone in Mexico, Sheinbaum said. <\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s rejection of the U.S. demand for the arrest and extradition of the accused would appear to put Mexico on a collision course with Trump, who has harshly criticized<\/a> Sheinbaum\u2019s government for not doing enough to crack down on cartels.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum\u2019s comments come a day after the unsealing of a bombshell indictment in federal court in New York accusing 10 current and former Mexican officials of drug trafficking, arms offenses and links to the notorious Sinaloa cartel co-founded by Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n. <\/p>\n

\"Governor <\/p>\n

Rub\u00e9n Rocha Moya, governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, at the inauguration of President Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico City in 2024.<\/p>\n

(Luis Barron \/ Eyepix Group\/Sipa USA via Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Topping the list of accused was Rub\u00e9n Rocha Moya, governor of the northwestern Sinaloa state. Also indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice were a federal senator from Sinaloa and the sitting mayor of Culiac\u00e1n, the state capital of Sinaloa.<\/p>\n

Rocha Moya and others named have denied the charges, calling them an attempt to subvert Mexico\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

The indictment outlines a disturbing scenario of an entire Mexican state and its institutions at the service of the Sinaloa mob.<\/p>\n

But Sheinbaum disputed the account as inaccurate and lacking evidence. During her morning news conference, she seemed to mock some of the U.S. evidence, including hand-written ledgers allegedly denoting payoffs to Mexican politicians. Her staff projected the images on the screen during the morning session at Mexico\u2019s National Palace. <\/p>\n

Sheinbaum emphasized that it was unprecedented for the U.S. to initiate charges directly against a sitting governor. \u201cThis has never happened before, ever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She repeatedly said that her government \u201cprotects no one,\u201d but demanded \u201creal\u201d and \u201cirrefutable\u201d evidence before taking action against Rocha Moya and others.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum\u2019s defiance places Mexico in a confrontation with U.S. authorities not seen since 2021, during the first Trump presidency, when a former Mexican defense minister was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on trafficking charges. <\/p>\n

Retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos was eventually released after an intense lobbying campaign by Mexican diplomats and then-President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, Sheinbaum\u2019s predecessor and mentor. <\/p>\n

Cienfuegos never faced charges in Mexico, and L\u00f3pez Obrador accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating a case against him. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did they do the investigation like this?\u201d L\u00f3pez Obrador said at the time. \u201cWithout support, without proof?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the U.S. prosecution of a sitting Mexican governor and other officials on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6207,13887,13881,13886,8,13889,13888,13653,215,9,13885,13654,2712,13884,13890,7,13882,13883],"class_list":{"0":"post-22793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-arrest","9":"tag-bombshell-indictment","10":"tag-drug-charge","11":"tag-foreign-government","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-incendiary-case","14":"tag-lacking-evidence","15":"tag-mexican-governor","16":"tag-mexico","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-other-official","19":"tag-ruben-rocha-moya","20":"tag-sheinbaum","21":"tag-sinaloa","22":"tag-state-capital","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-u-s-prosecution","25":"tag-u-s-demand"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116495615411790316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}