The U.S. Builds a Case Against Quirino Ordaz: DEA and FBI Investigate Alleged Pact With Drug Trafficking

Marco Antonio Almanza Avilés was not Rubén Rocha’s head of the Investigative Police. He commanded the corporation from 2017 until November 2022, when he was removed following the arrival of Sara Bruna Quiñónez to the State Attorney General’s Office. Almanza’s appointment was extended due to his loyalty to Quirino Ordaz Coppel

Alvaro Aragón Ayala

Based on intelligence reports, the United States Department of Justice — the agency overseeing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — is assembling a solid criminal case against the current Mexican ambassador to Spain and former governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz Coppel. Investigators allege that during his constitutional term as governor under the PRI-PVEM coalition, a sophisticated model of “fictitious governance” was consolidated — one that, rather than combating organized crime, strengthened the criminal structures with which it allegedly coexisted. Security analysts describe this arrangement as a system of managed stability. While public opinion places the surge in violence and the infiltration of state structures in the 2021–2022 period following the arrival of Rubén Rocha Moya, U.S. agencies maintain that it was under Ordaz Coppel’s administration that the machinery enabling institutional coexistence with drug trafficking was reinforced.

Among the priority lines of investigation into Quirino Ordaz’s inner circle, eight former officials from his administration stand out. The most prominent names include Marco Antonio Almanza Avilés, Ricardo Madrid Pérez, and Jesús Alberto Camacho García, who respectively served as head of the Investigative Police within the State Attorney General’s Office, private secretary and political operator, and coordinator of Social Communication. According to intelligence documents, these former collaborators operated as key figures in constructing a phenomenon that, on the surface, projected an image of social peace, but beneath the structures of power functioned as a symbiotic criminal equilibrium between the state and drug trafficking organizations.

The first high-profile target is Marco Antonio Almanza Avilés, who led the Investigative Police from 2017 until November 2022, when he was removed after Sara Bruna Quiñónez took over the State Attorney General’s Office. The DEA and FBI clarified that Almanza was never part of Rubén Rocha Moya’s police team nor appointed by him as a security chief; rather, his appointment and operational loyalty aligned with the interests of Quirino Ordaz. Regarding Almanza, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the DEA have brought formal accusations related to the alleged receipt of multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, protection against arrests, advance leaks of law enforcement operations, logistical facilitation for the transport of chemical precursors used in fentanyl production, as well as conspiracy to traffic narcotics and possession of military-grade firearms, including machine guns and explosives.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Madrid Pérez — current federal congressman and leader of the Green Ecologist Party (PVEM) in Sinaloa — is under direct scrutiny by the DEA and FBI in coordination with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The former manager of the ex-governor’s personal agenda is being investigated for allegedly possessing financial assets and real estate holdings that vastly exceed his legal income as a public servant. U.S. authorities, under what they describe as well-founded suspicion, believe Madrid Pérez may have served as a direct liaison to priority targets sought by American justice agencies. Agency files further indicate that he operated as a strategic “courier” tasked with keeping Quirino Ordaz informed about the deployment of the 2021 electoral operation.

The third pillar under international scrutiny is Jesús Alberto Camacho García, currently assigned to the Mexican Embassy in Spain within the area of International Cooperation and Education. U.S. authorities are investigating his growing wealth, his investments in Culiacán, and his “strategic” role in Spain. From the Social Communication Coordination Office in Sinaloa, Camacho García allegedly designed a propaganda framework that systematically concealed territorial violence. Under this scheme, the bloodiest episodes and cartel-related executions were diluted, fragmented, or displaced from the public agenda through artificial narratives centered on economic growth, tourism, and foreign investment. Public spending was allegedly conditioned to divert the attention of both local and national public opinion, masking the expansion of drug trafficking influence within state institutions.

DEA and FBI assessments emphasize that the violence crisis and the accumulated power of the Sinaloa Cartel did not emerge spontaneously during Rubén Rocha Moya’s administration. On the contrary, the criminal structure in Sinaloa began consolidating in the late 1970s and strengthened over multiple federal and state administrations governed by both the PRI and PAN parties. Drug trafficking organizations expanded through networks of economic dependency, political protection, territorial control, and deeply rooted functional relationships across different layers of the state. This vertical penetration began at the lowest levels — through bribery of local police officers and inspectors — and evolved into complex forms of political co-optation and control over entire territories.

U.S. criminal intelligence officials believe that dismantling this ecosystem requires prosecuting officials from Sinaloa administrations preceding the current government. For this reason, investigations are looking retrospectively toward the six-year administration of Quirino Ordaz Coppel, a period marked by high-impact political events and profound criminal implications, including the first “Culiacanazo” in October 2019 and former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s public greeting to the mother of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in Badiraguato. These events placed Sinaloa under international scrutiny and provided empirical evidence regarding the level of criminal infiltration within security institutions and political power structures.

This alleged collusion reached its peak during the 2021 electoral process. According to journalistic records, investigative files, and formal legal challenges filed by opposition parties, Sinaloa experienced a “narco-election” carried out under the acquiescence of then-Governor Quirino Ordaz. Reports claim that the governor deliberately instructed public security forces under his command — both municipal and state police — to ignore emergency calls from families of citizens and political operators who were allegedly abducted and illegally detained. This deliberate institutional omission allowed armed groups to move with total impunity throughout Culiacán and the rest of the state’s municipalities in order to coerce the vote. The operation reportedly maintained strict internal media containment due to the tight economic control the government exercised over the editorial lines of the local press.

Investigations further conclude that public spending on government communication during the Ordaz administration was not intended for accountability, but rather for constructing a media shield to conceal the consolidation of organized crime. The Coordination Office headed by Alberto Camacho allegedly deployed a strategy based on advertising saturation, purchased editorial alignment, and minimization of crime statistics. During that six-year term, approximately two billion pesos were spent on official advertising, accompanied by systematic budget overruns that transformed public funds into a mechanism of political and criminal protection. While anti-drug trafficking operations declined and criminal factions expanded their territorial control, the official narrative financed by the state government projected an illusion of order and governability, completely fracturing the relationship between the reality on the ground and public perception.