Gerardo Merida Sanchez was arrested in Arizona on May 11 before being transferred to New York.

A former security chief in Mexico’s Sinaloa state has been taken into US custody on allegations linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, according to federal court records and reports unsealed late Thursday.

Gerardo Merida Sanchez, 66, who served as Sinaloa’s public security secretary from September 2023 to December 2024, was arrested in Arizona on May 11 before being transferred to New York.

He is reportedly due to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Friday and is currently being held at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.

Merida Sanchez and former Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha were both charged in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court on April 29, accusing them of conspiring with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to import large quantities of narcotics into the United States in exchange for political support and bribes.

According to the indictment, US prosecutors said Merida Sanchez accepted more than $100,000 in monthly cash bribes from Los Chapitos, a powerful faction of the cartel led by the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in exchange for protecting the group’s operations.

Authorities allege he used his position to shield the group’s drug trafficking operations by ordering law enforcement officers not to arrest Los Chapitos members while targeting rival criminal groups instead.

Prosecutors also accuse Merida Sanchez of leaking sensitive intelligence to the cartel, including advance warning about investigations and planned raids on drug laboratories and safehouses. In one instance in 2023, authorities said he alerted the group ahead of at least 10 raids, allowing cartel members to move personnel, drugs and equipment before security forces arrived.

Cartel case deepens US-Mexico political tensions

The indictment marked a significant escalation in the US crackdown on Mexican drug cartels, widening investigations beyond criminal organisations to include political figures accused of collaborating with trafficking networks.

Rocha, a member of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party, denied the charges and said they were an attack against Mexico’s governing political movement.

He temporarily stepped down on May 2, requesting a 30-day leave of absence and saying he did so with a “clean conscience”. Rocha said he would use the time to defend himself against what he described as “false and malicious” allegations and to cooperate with the Mexican government’s investigation into the case. Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde was appointed as interim governor.

Sheinbaum said on April 30 that her government would not protect anyone who committed a crime, but suggested the US charges appeared politically motivated.

“If there isn’t clear evidence, it is obvious that the objective of these indictments by the Department of Justice is political,” she said.

The latest developments also coincide with a broader hard-line shift in US counternarcotics policy under President Donald Trump. According to The New York Times, federal prosecutors were this week instructed to consider using “terrorism-related statutes” against Mexican officials allegedly linked to the narcotics trade, a move expected to further strain relations between Washington and Mexico City.

The newspaper reported that the directive followed Trump’s decision earlier this year to designate several Latin American drug cartels as “terrorist organisations”, part of an expanded strategy that has also increased US military operations targeting suspected traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.