Mexican authorities have frozen the accounts of a governor wanted on drug trafficking charges in the United States, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday.
The US Justice Department last month charged the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Ruben Rocha Moya, and nine others of working with a powerful cartel to ship massive quantities of narcotics to the United States.
Rocha Moya is from Sheinbaum’s leftist Morena party.
He has rejected the allegations but stepped aside as governor. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Sheinbaum told reporters that his accounts were “preventively” frozen, saying that Mexican banks automatically freeze the accounts of people who are the target of US arrest warrants.
The charges against Rocha Moya were seen as a fierce rebuke of Sheinbaum, who has been under immense pressure from US President Donald Trump to tackle drug traffickers.
Sheinbaum has demanded to see “irrefutable” evidence against Rocha Moya before extraditing him to the United States.
She insisted Monday that her government had “absolutely nothing to hide” and had no dealings with criminals of any kind.
Two former officials from Rocha Moya’s administration turned themselves in to US authorities last week.
Washington accuses Rocha Moya of working with the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups that have been designated terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.
Sheinbaum has come under pressure from Washington to accept US intervention, in the form of drone strikes or deployment of US military personnel, to fight the cartels.
She has handed over dozens of suspected cartel members to the United States but so far rejected the idea of any US presence in Mexico.
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