Two former officials are on the run, accused of secretly leading a criminal group. Their old boss, now a powerful senator in the president’s party, is being grilled over what he knew.
And the timing could not be worse for Mexico’s president, who faces the corruption scandal as President Trump doubles down on accusations that drug cartels have the Mexican government in their grip.
At the scandal’s center is the senator, Adán Augusto López Hernández, a former interior minister and governor of Tabasco State, and a close confidante of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Two men Mr. López appointed in Tabasco, a secretary of security and state police chief, are now wanted by the Mexican government and Interpol, facing charges of leading a criminal group involved in drug trafficking.
Mr. López has not been accused of any crimes, and President Claudia Sheinbaum and her ruling party, Morena, have closed ranks behind him.
But the case strikes at the heart of one of Mr. Trump’s most sensitive accusations: that Mexico’s political elite is unwilling to purge itself of the corruption that has long provided the cartels cover and impunity. The Mexican government has denied those allegations.
The scandal comes after Mr. Trump pushed Ms. Sheinbaum to allow U.S. troops to deploy inside Mexico to combat the cartels. Although the United States and Mexico on Thursday extended trade talks, Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened steep tariffs to pressure Mexico into doing more against cartels and drug trafficking.
“This marks a turning point for Sheinbaum’s administration,” said Sergio Aguayo, a Mexican analyst. “It comes at a moment when Washington has shifted away from its previous tacit support for the political class in Mexico and is now demanding action against collusion between politicians, criminals and business elites.”
The Mexican government argues that it is, in fact, taking serious action.
Ms. Sheinbaum adopted an aggressive security approach, deploying hundreds of troops to confront the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s largest fentanyl producers.
The strategy has shown signs of success, with the cartel weaker and fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexican border down 30 percent.
But despite that progress, the case of the Tabasco officials has undermined Ms. Sheinbaum’s vows to defeat the cartels by all means necessary, including rooting out corruption at the highest levels of power. The Morena party has always distanced itself from its rivals by promising zero tolerance for graft or impunity within its own ranks.
And what Mr. López knew about his security chiefs and when remains a mystery.
The scandal first began to emerge in 2022, when a group hacked the Defense Ministry, releasing some four million emails. The trove contained a military investigation in 2019 that detailed how Mr. López — then Tabasco’s governor — had filled top security posts with officials linked to a criminal group, called La Barredora.
At the time of the leak, Mr. López was serving as interior minister, and denied any wrongdoing. But Tabasco’s secretary of security, Hernán Bermúdez Requena, remained in his position, only stepping down last year.
Despite the military’s 2019 report, Mexico’s attorney general only opened an investigation this year. Mexican officials confirmed last month that Mr. Bermúdez was wanted for arrest, thrusting his former boss back into the spotlight.
The case may demonstrate a break between Ms. Sheinbaum and her mentor, Mr. López Obrador. During his six-year term, violence skyrocketed across Mexico and cartels expanded their territory as he pursued a “hugs not bullets” strategy, directing less government confrontation of criminal groups and more social spending.
Under Ms. Sheinbaum, homicides have started to drop, earning her praise from the public and many experts.
“Mexico is not a narco-state, Mexico is not a failed state. Mexico has failed parts, but it also has millions of people working to fix it,” said Viridiana Ríos, a political analyst. “Believing that every politician is in bed with narcos is not only a disservice to what Sheinbaum and others are doing every day to fight cartels but a fantastical and overly simplistic view of reality.”
Ms. Sheinbaum has so far dodged answering specific questions about what Mr. López might have known. Morena declared its support for Mr. López last month, although the investigations into his former aides remain open.
But the scandal highlights the growing ideological divide within the party, according to Ms. Ríos, with some party figures calling for him to be held accountable.
When the party rallied around Mr. López last month, a Morena leader gave an impassioned speech about how “we aren’t the same,” claiming the moral high ground on corruption compared to Mexico’s other parties.
But critics say Mr. López’s case may prove that Morena is not so different, in some respects.
“Morena’s whole ethos is: We are different, we aren’t the same as the others, we are better,” Juan Pablo Spinetto, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, said in an interview.
“But Morena has been in power for a while now and they dominate all levels of government,” he added. “And when there is wrongdoing at the top levels of government and it is ignored, you can’t keep saying, ‘But we are different.’”
Maria Abi-Habib is an investigative correspondent reporting on Latin America and is based in Mexico City.
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