“Nothing that can link me” to the accusations made by ‘El Mayo’: Rocha Moya

Culiacan, Sin. The governor of this state, Rubén Rocha Moya, rejected the allegations that were allegedly made in a statement by the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael The May Zambada, who point directly to the state leader as being involved in his capture.

“There is absolutely nothing, nothing, that can link me to this matter. Nothing! I say this in a categorical, forceful manner. Nothing!” he stressed, stating his position in the face of the controversy caused by the disclosure of the alleged testimony of the drug lord.

“If they told him (to) The May) that I was going to be there (in a meeting between several characters, including members of organized crime), they lied to him; and if he believed them, he fell into the trap, he shouldn’t have to, I don’t have to.”

The governor made these statements before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the future federal president, Cláudia Sheimbaum, when opening the inauguration ceremony of the IMSS Bienestar General Hospital “Dr. Bernardo J. Gastélum”, which is taking place in this capital.

He said he was an “apprentice” of President López Obrador’s zero corruption and anti-violence policy. Therefore, “I cannot make him look bad, I cannot allow anyone to try to tarnish him, because many of the things have that purpose, to tarnish me and in the process tarnish the president.”

He assured that on the day of the capture of The May He was out of state. He asked the president to act as an intermediary to ask the head of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), Alejandro Gertz Manero, to take on the case of the murder of the former rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), Héctor Melesio Cuen Ojeda, which occurred that same day.

“Now there is an alleged letter from one of those arrested on the 25th. It is a letter from Mr. Ismael Zambada, who was captured with the young Mr. Joaquín Guzmán López, from the Sinaloa cartel. It is very common that Sinaloa is shocked by any information on this subject, too much, we must admit, this is where the cartel was born and developed.”

However, he stressed, “we do not accept the stigma that everything, we do not accept that stigma, we fight against it” that everything in Sinaloa is linked to that criminal organization.

“What is said in this letter, Mr. President, is more or less the version of how the event of the 25th occurred where they were captured. I am not going to relate it because it is not my job. But it says there that Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of the state, was summoned to that event, among others, and that was the reason, perhaps, the hook for Mr. Ismael Zambada to go to that event.”

The governor said “without any strings attached” that he was not in Sinaloa territory that day; in addition, he said “nobody from organized crime has to call me to a meeting to resolve a problem, which was the university’s. Problems that are the responsibility of the government are resolved in government institutions.”

He said he has no collusion with anyone and that he supports the president’s policy of zero relations with criminality.

“Those problems that are the government’s responsibility are resolved in the institutions. There is absolutely nothing, nothing, that can link me to that matter. Nothing!”

The local leader said that the murder of the former rector of the UAS is being handled by the state prosecutor’s office, which has a line of investigation, but no possibility is being ruled out.

However, to ensure greater certainty, he asked López Obrador to request the Attorney General to take over the case.