By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have taken into custody an ally of Mexico’s Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, who was charged last month over alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and he is due to appear in court on Friday.
Gerardo Merida Sanchez, who served as public security secretary in Rocha's government from September 2023 through December 2024, was arrested in Arizona on Monday and presented before a federal judge in Tucson on Tuesday, according to court records unsealed on Thursday afternoon.
He is due to appear in Manhattan federal court on Friday afternoon, a court official said.
Both Rocha and Merida were charged in an indictment unsealed in court on April 29 with conspiring with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to import massive quantities of narcotics into the U.S. in exchange for political support and bribes.
The indictment signaled that the U.S. fight against the cartels was expanding beyond investigations into criminal groups to include politicians, a significant escalation that could increase tensions between the United States and Mexico.
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 stepped aside temporarily on May 2, saying he did so with a "clean conscience."
Sheinbaum said on April 30 that she would not protect anyone who has committed a crime but added, "If there isn't clear evidence, it is obvious that the objective of these indictments by the Department of Justice is political."
Sheinbaum's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
According to the indictment, Merida received bribes from sons of now-imprisoned Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in exchange for giving them advance notice of law enforcement raids on drug labs.
The public defender who represented Merida in the Tucson proceeding did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was not immediately clear how Merida was taken into custody in the U.S.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Emily Green in Mexico City; Editing by Mark Porter and Sanjeev Miglani)
