Mexican Ruling Party Officials Quietly Cooperate with U.S. Corruption Probes, Undermining Sheinbaum’s Defiance

As the Trump administration intensifies its investigations into the Mexican government, elected officials from the country’s ruling party have been quietly approaching U.S. authorities to serve as informants against their own colleagues, according to eight individuals familiar with the discussions.

The outreach follows the U.S. indictment of ten current and former Mexican officials in April on charges of colluding with one of the nation’s most powerful drug cartels. In response, President Claudia Sheinbaum has made challenging those investigations a rallying point for her leftist Morena party, denouncing the charges as foreign interference.

Behind the scenes, however, these conversations between Morena members and U.S. authorities could provide American investigators critical momentum at a delicate moment in bilateral relations, escalating the standoff between the two nations.

At least a dozen Mexican elected officials — including governors and members of Congress, many from the governing party — have initiated discussions about sharing information on fellow politicians, multiple sources said. Several have already begun formal talks with U.S. officials.

Many of these officials are seeking to preempt investigations they fear may soon target them, sources indicated.

The surge in cooperation was partly triggered by a Drug Enforcement Administration initiative that privately contacted Mexican officials to persuade them to cooperate, according to three people familiar with the effort.

More than a dozen people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the DEA’s outreach and the confidential talks between the U.S. government and Mexican officials. The DEA and the Mexican government declined to comment.

Mexican politicians assisting U.S. investigations into their colleagues represents a deeply troubling development for Mexico’s dominant political party and its leader, President Sheinbaum. It signals that American corruption investigations are accelerating just as Sheinbaum has made opposing them a central pillar of her presidency.

If U.S. investigators persuade enough Morena politicians to act as informants, it could trigger a cascade of cooperating witnesses and indictments that threatens to weaken the party. Following a series of electoral defeats for leftist parties across Latin America, Morena remains the most significant leftist government still in power outside of Brazil.

Some Mexican analysts predicted the Trump administration’s investigations would give the governing party a unifying cause. Yet the willingness of some politicians to cooperate with U.S. probes, despite Sheinbaum’s resistance, reveals fissures within the party.

“The closing of ranks that the president is calling for from above is not being matched from below,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a prominent Mexican political analyst. “Because some people within the system, instead of standing with the president, are rushing to the United States to save their own skin.”

Sheinbaum has widely been viewed as a model for managing relations with President Trump, but she now faces a tightening predicament that illustrates the challenges for Latin America’s leftist leaders. Trump, who wields enormous influence over Mexico’s economic fortunes, wants her to surrender her political allies, while the left wing of her party — her base of support — demands she stand up to him.

She has recently sided with her party, refusing U.S. demands to arrest Rubén Rocha Moya, the Morena governor of Sinaloa state, after U.S. prosecutors charged him with protecting his state’s powerful cartel in exchange for electoral support.

Sheinbaum has stated that U.S. investigators have presented no evidence warranting Rocha Moya’s arrest and that the demand constitutes meddling in Mexico’s affairs. She has also pledged that Mexican prosecutors will open their own investigations into the accused officials, while repeatedly accusing the Trump administration of playing politics.

“Is there really a legitimate interest in fighting organized crime?” she asked in a fiery speech last month. “Or are we maybe seeing how parts of the American far right are using our country to position themselves ahead of their 2026 elections?”

“We are no longer talking about cooperation,” she added. “We are talking about interference.”

Sheinbaum’s defiant stance has divided her cabinet between pragmatists who favor deeper cooperation with Washington and left-wing colleagues who argue the Trump administration is setting a dangerous precedent by prosecuting a sitting Mexican governor, according to two people familiar with the internal debate.

The United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner, and the two countries are negotiating an expiring trade deal. Trump has also threatened military action in Mexico to combat cartels, a move Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected.

The Morena officials now cooperating add to a growing roster of high-level Mexican informants who have provided U.S. authorities a remarkably detailed picture of cartel operations and their nexus with Mexican politicians, according to four people with direct knowledge of the discussions, including lawyers and former U.S. law enforcement officials.

Two of the ten Mexican officials indicted in April are now in U.S. custody, with one surrendering at the border. U.S. prosecutors have also obtained information from two imprisoned cartel leaders — sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera — who pleaded guilty last year to drug charges. Over the past 18 months, Sheinbaum’s government has extradited 92 Mexican cartel operatives to the United States, several of whom have begun cooperating, according to the four sources.

Those providing information include top lieutenants to El Chapo’s sons, one of their senior pilots, and one of their top advisers.

A primary focus of these interrogations has been how cartels corrupted Mexican officials, sources said. U.S. officials view rooting out corruption as key to addressing Mexico’s cartel problem. Last month, a senior Justice Department official urged federal prosecutors to prioritize corruption investigations in Mexico, even instructing them to employ terrorism statutes in their cases.

Derek Maltz, former acting administrator of the DEA, said the cooperating Morena officials and the pool of detained drug traffickers increase the likelihood that U.S. authorities are building major cases.

“I’m very confident there will be some high-level indictments coming,” he said.

Overall, Sheinbaum has cultivated a positive relationship with the Trump administration, largely by increasing Mexican military presence along the border and significantly expanding security cooperation. Mexican authorities, acting partly on U.S. intelligence, recently killed Mexico’s top drug kingpin, Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”

Sheinbaum’s government has also reported a nationwide decrease in violent crime. Government data shows homicides from January to May dropped 63 percent compared to the same period two years prior.

Targeting politicians, however, is far more politically fraught for Sheinbaum. Some subjects of U.S. investigations are not only party members but also close allies of her predecessor and political benefactor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who remains a towering figure in Mexican politics.

Critics have long accused López Obrador and some of his children, who have served as Morena officials, of corruption. U.S. officials examined those claims but never opened a formal investigation.

Those allegations resurfaced this week through leaked excerpts from an upcoming book by former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar. Salazar wrote that he understood from a mutual contact that López Obrador was concerned about the 2024 U.S. capture of a cartel leader because of what information the criminal might provide. Salazar later stated he had no direct evidence linking López Obrador to cartels.

López Obrador and his sons have denied any cartel ties. Sheinbaum defended her predecessor this week, saying any concerns he had about the 2024 operation related to “interference and a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”

Two targets of the U.S. corruption investigations are the Morena governors of Sonora and Tamaulipas, Alfonso Durazo and Américo Villarreal Anaya, according to five people familiar with the probes who were not authorized to speak publicly. Both governors have denied corruption allegations.

Durazo “has carried out public service with strict adherence to the law” and has not been notified of any investigation, his spokeswoman, Paloma Terán, said in a statement.

López Obrador is allied with both men, having appointed Durazo as his security minister and publicly backing Villarreal when he faced corruption claims in 2022, which he denied.

The investigations into the governors were previously reported by the Los Angeles Times.

This week, the Mexican outlet El Universal published leaked audio of another governor, Marina del Pilar of Baja California, revealing her scheduling a meeting with U.S. authorities.

“I’m very willing because I want to resolve this and clarify anything, but I’d really like it to be through my lawyer,” she said in the three-minute recording.

Del Pilar confirmed the recording’s authenticity, adding that the meeting concerned her revoked U.S. visa but never took place. She also insisted she has a clear conscience: “The supposed shady agreements with the United States authorities are a total lie.”

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