Iranians About to be Executed Sing a Message to the World About the Deadly Regime
A final song of resistance against the terrorist regime.
Our thoughts and prayers . . . .
https://x.com/koshercockney/status/2048864498841493957
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Iranians About to be Executed Sing a Message to the World About the Deadly Regime
Federal Prosecutors Charge Sinaloa's Governor, a Senator, a Mayor, and Seven Other Senior Mexican Officials With Running a Narco-State for the Chapitos
An Unprecedented U.S. Indictment of a Sitting Mexican Governor Has Put President Sheinbaum in an Impossible Position.
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors in New York have charged ten current and former senior Mexican government officials — among them the sitting governor of Sinaloa, a sitting federal senator, the mayor of the state capital, and the state’s former secretary of public security — with conspiring to protect the Sinaloa Cartel’s most powerful faction in exchange for millions of dollars in drug money, in what may be the most sweeping corruption indictment ever brought against a sitting government in the Western Hemisphere.
The superseding indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York and unsealed Wednesday, charges all ten defendants with narcotics importation conspiracy — specifically, conspiracy to flood the United States with fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine — as well as conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices in furtherance of drug trafficking.
One defendant, a municipal police commander, faces additional charges of kidnapping resulting in death: the alleged abduction and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration confidential source, his relative, and a 13-year-old boy, carried out using a police patrol car.
The document does not describe a cartel that corrupted a government. It describes a government that became the cartel’s operating infrastructure.
In what appears to be the first instance in American legal history of the Justice Department indicting a sitting Mexican governor, prosecutors allege that Ruben Rocha Moya, 76, who has served as governor of Sinaloa since November 2021, did not simply accept cartel money. He allegedly made his deal with the Chapitos — the sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — before he was ever elected, in a meeting guarded by Cartel sicarios armed with machineguns, and delivered on every term thereafter.
What makes the filing extraordinary even by the standards of major cartel prosecutions is the physical evidence prosecutors say they recovered: handwritten monthly bribe lists, seized in Mexico during the investigation, that record by name, alias, and official position which Sinaloa officials were being paid by the Cartel, and exactly how much. The lists name defendants in this case. They are reproduced in the indictment as photographs. They are, in effect, the Chapitos’ payroll — and they show a government bought line by line.
“The Sinaloa Cartel is a ruthless criminal organization that has flooded this community with dangerous drugs for decades,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “No matter your title or position, we are committed to bringing you to justice.”
The indictment sets off what observers described as a political earthquake in Mexico — and poses a crisis of a different kind for President Claudia Sheinbaum, whose own party, Morena, counts at least three of the defendants among its members. The charges land on the eve of formal renegotiations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade pact central to Mexico’s export economy, a timing that reads less like coincidence than calculated maximum pressure.
Ioan Grillo, a veteran journalist and author who has spent decades covering Mexico’s cartels, noted Wednesday that Mexico’s foreign relations department received the extradition requests for Rocha Moya and the other Sinaloa officials the previous evening at 6 p.m. — meaning Sheinbaum had roughly 18 hours to prepare a response before the indictment became public. “She is in a very tough position,” Grillo wrote.
At the center of the indictment is Rocha Moya.
As governor, he oversees Sinaloa’s entire administrative apparatus, including all state and local police forces. Prosecutors allege his relationship with the Chapitos predates his election and was foundational to it. In early 2021, while still campaigning, Rocha Moya allegedly attended a meeting with Ivan and Ovidio Guzman at which he promised that if elected, he would install officials friendly to the Chapitos’ drug trafficking operations throughout the Sinaloa government. The Chapitos delivered on their side.
On election day in June 2021, sicarios acting on Ivan’s orders stole ballots and ballot boxes for the opposing party. They used a list of Rocha Moya’s opponents and their home addresses — provided to the Chapitos by co-defendant Enrique Diaz Vega — to kidnap and intimidate those opponents into abandoning the race. Officers of the Sinaloa State Police, whose commanders had been ordered to stand down, received emergency calls reporting armed men at polling stations, voters being directed at gunpoint toward favored candidates, and ballot boxes being stolen across Culiacan, Mazatlan, Navolato, and Elota.
After winning, Rocha Moya and his secretary general, Enrique Inzunza Cazarez — now a sitting federal senator — met again with the Chapitos under machineguns and confirmed their arrangement: in exchange for the Chapitos’ support, Rocha Moya would deliver effective control of the Sinaloa State Police to the Cartel. As governor, prosecutors allege, he has delivered on every term.
Inzunza Cazarez, now representing Sinaloa in Mexico’s federal senate, allegedly served as a direct physical courier between the Chapitos and Rocha Moya, conveying communications confirming the terms of their arrangement. Enrique Diaz Vega, who served as Sinaloa’s secretary of administration and finance from November 2021 to September 2024, allegedly handed the Chapitos the names and home addresses of Rocha Moya’s political opponents so the Cartel could threaten them out of the race before a ballot was cast.
The corruption ran deep into the state’s law enforcement apparatus.
Damaso Castro Zaavedra, Sinaloa’s deputy attorney general, allegedly received approximately $200,000 pesos — roughly $10,893 in U.S. dollars — every month. In exchange, he gave the Chapitos advance warning of planned operations, including identifying which drug labs were being targeted by the Drug Enforcement Administration so evidence could be destroyed or moved before raids began.
Two successive chiefs of Sinaloa’s Investigative Police — Marco Antonio Almanza Aviles and Alberto Jorge Contreras Nunez, known as “Cholo” — were both allegedly on the Chapitos’ monthly payroll throughout their tenures. Aviles allegedly accepted roughly $16,670 per month from a meeting at one of Ivan’s ranches in 2017 or 2018; in exchange, he issued arrest warrants for the Chapitos’ enemies on demand and ordered the release of cartel members arrested for drug trafficking.
Contreras Nunez, selected by Rocha Moya with explicit Chapitos approval and holding the position until approximately February 2026, accepted approximately $16,000 per month in cash and helped the Chapitos track down and kill their enemies. Gerardo Merida Sanchez, Sinaloa’s secretary of public security — overseeing the entire state police — allegedly accepted more than $100,000 in U.S. dollars in monthly cash bribes and in 2023 alone warned the Cartel in advance of at least ten raids on drug labs, allowing them to evacuate personnel, drugs, and equipment before police arrived.
Jose Antonio Dionisio Hipolito, known as “Tornado,” a deputy director and later commander of the Sinaloa State Police, allegedly accepted approximately $6,000 per month from at least 2012 through 2024, sold ammunition and assault rifle magazines to Chapitos members, had arrest paperwork altered to conceal that detained cartel members had been armed, and met personally with Ivan and Ovidio to receive a radio with instructions to stay in contact.
The most grave allegation in the indictment concerns October 2023, and it falls on Juan Valenzuela Millan, known as “Juanito,” a high-level commander in the Culiacan Municipal Police from approximately 2018 to 2024.
Millan allegedly accepted approximately $41,000 per month in cash — funds distributed among himself, his commanders, and more than forty other corrupt municipal officers — and gave the Chapitos unrestricted access to the intelligence, operations, and physical resources of the municipal police, including patrol cars and radios.
When Ivan Guzman and a senior Chapitos associate ordered the kidnapping and murder of Alexander Meza Leon, a confidential source providing information to the Drug Enforcement Administration about Chapitos drug trafficking operations, Millan’s officers carried out the abduction. In a marked patrol car, municipal police stopped Meza Leon and another victim on the street, detained them, and handed them directly to Cartel sicarios, who tortured and killed them. Among the victims killed was a 13-year-old boy. Additional civilians were subsequently kidnapped and murdered as the Chapitos sought to eliminate anyone associated with the source. Count Four of the indictment charges Millan alone with kidnapping resulting in death. Juan de Dios Gamez Mendivil, the current mayor of Culiacan, rounds out the list of defendants. He allegedly accepted more than $10,000 in U.S. dollars per month and shielded Chapitos operations across the city he governs.
Among the most remarkable pieces of evidence described in the indictment are physical documents prosecutors say they recovered from Mexico: handwritten monthly bribe lists maintained by the Chapitos’ plaza boss in Culiacan. Each month, prosecutors allege, the plaza boss received from the Chapitos a box of cash alongside a list specifying the name, alias, or official position of each official to be paid and the precise peso amount. Three such lists are reproduced as photographs in the indictment — each headed with a variation of “Gobierno” and a total figure, each with the names of defendants circled in red. They are, prosecutors say, the Cartel’s own records — a paper ledger of a purchased government, recovered in Mexico, showing the systematic monthly acquisition of Sinaloa’s law enforcement apparatus, position by position, peso by peso.
The indictment situates the corruption within a supply chain that begins in China and ends in American communities.
The Sinaloa Cartel, prosecutors allege, has for years worked directly with precursor chemical manufacturers in China and elsewhere to obtain the raw materials needed to produce fentanyl and methamphetamine at industrial scale. Sinaloa’s position on Mexico’s Pacific coast has given Chinese suppliers both maritime and air access to deliver those chemicals to the state and its surrounding regions — access that was only possible, prosecutors allege, because corrupt officials like those charged Wednesday ensured no one would interfere with the shipments.
Once manufactured, the narcotics moved north through Sonora and Baja California across the United States border concealed in car compartments, tractor-trailers, luggage on commercial flights, shipping containers with falsified paperwork, and the bodies of drug mules, as well as through tunnels beneath the border and on so-called black flights, where planes flew with their transponders disabled. Stash houses in Southern California, El Paso, and Phoenix fed a wholesale distribution network reaching New York and the East Coast. Fentanyl has become one of the leading causes of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.
The political fallout for Sheinbaum is severe.
At least three of the defendants — Rocha Moya, the mayor of Culiacan, and Senator Inzunza Cazarez — are members of her party, Morena. Rocha Moya was a staunch ally of Sheinbaum’s political mentor, former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and enthusiastically embraced Lopez Obrador’s signature “Hugs, Not Bullets” cartel policy — a deliberate strategy of avoiding direct confrontation with Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations. Critics have long argued that both Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum carried out few high-level corruption prosecutions and weakened the institutions responsible for rooting it out. His long personal friendship with Lopez Obrador, Mexican observers have noted, appeared to shield Rocha Moya from scrutiny despite long-rumored cartel ties.
Sheinbaum, just days before the unsealing, told reporters her government had seen no evidence supporting the corruption allegations and insisted any American investigation of Mexican nationals must be reviewed by the Mexican attorney general’s office. Mexico’s foreign ministry, after receiving the extradition requests, said the documents provided by Washington did not contain sufficient evidence to establish the defendants’ responsibility, adding that the attorney general’s office would determine whether arrests and extraditions were warranted.
Rocha Moya denied everything. “This attack isn’t just against me,” he wrote on X Wednesday afternoon. “It is part of a perverse strategy to violate the constitutional order” of Mexico and an assault on national sovereignty. “We will show them that this slander doesn’t have any sort of foundation.” Senator Inzunza Cazarez issued a similar denial.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson last week signaled the campaign was coming, warning publicly that Washington would be targeting Mexican officials linked to organized crime. Two of El Chapo’s sons — Ovidio Guzman Lopez and Joaquin Guzman Lopez — are currently in U.S. custody facing drug-smuggling charges and are widely reported to be cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for leniency.
The granular detail in Wednesday’s indictment — the meeting dates, the ranch locations, the radio handoffs, the bribe list totals — is consistent with, among other possible sources, testimony from individuals who were present at those meetings. Ovidio and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, both in U.S. custody and widely reported to be cooperating with prosecutors, would be among those with direct knowledge of the arrangements described.
As of Wednesday, none of the ten defendants were in custody. The charges carry maximum penalties including life imprisonment on the narcotics conspiracy count. Eight of the ten face mandatory minimum sentences of 40 years.
https://www.thebureau.news/p/federal-prosecutors-charge-sinaloas?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1444443&post_id=195930936&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
President Trump Notes Extended Conversation with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin
As you are aware, CTH is watching the small details closely on the U.S-Russia alignment against the backdrop of friction with the European Union, the U.K and NATO on issues surrounding Iran. In the past several days there have been several smaller moments lost amid media chatter of bigger news items, this is one such example today in the Oval Office.
During a press availability with the Artemis II astronauts, President Trump was asked for an update on the Ukraine conflict and seemingly stalled negotiations between U.S. intermediaries and Russia. At 04:12 of the video below, President Trump notes he spoke at length with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin today on issues related to the Ukraine conflict, and {{{thoughtful-pause}}} Iran. WATCH:
President Vladimir Putin is in no hurry to ceasefire in Ukraine, and the U.S. military operation in Iran is not against his interests.
On April 12, 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent quietly extended the sanction relief for Russia, permitting oil/gas sales loaded on vessels by 4/17/26 for transit and sale through 5/16/26. This permits Russia to push oil to Asia, specifically China, India and ASEAN countries where it is needed, while simultaneously the UAE and Saudi Arabia increase oil pumping avoiding the issues with the Strait of Hormuz.
This is happening while the U.S. is providing large oil and LNG supply increases to South/Central America, Europe and Japan to offset any global shortages.
Russia supplies China, India and Southeast Asia; the U.S. supplies Europe and Japan; the UAE supplies India and Australia; while Saudi Arabia supplies Africa and Europe. Global markets stable, Iran then faces operation financial fury led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. {Go Deep}
Analysis from Gen Jack Keane's ISW think tank:
Ukrainian long-range strikes also continue to have outsized impacts on Russian oil exports, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stating on April 29 that Ukrainian strikes have left the port of Primorsk, Leningrad Oblast, operating at 13 percent below capacity; the port of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, at 38 percent below capacity; and the port of Ust-Luga, Leningrad Oblast, at 43 percent below capacity.
So, we can reasonably see the general tone of the conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Analysis from Gen Jack Keane's ISW think tank:
Russian Presidential Aide Yuriy Ushakov claimed on April 29 that the Trump-Putin call lasted for 1.5 hours and that Putin briefed Trump on the current state of the war in Ukraine, claiming that Russia holds the strategic initiative and is “pushing back” Ukrainian positions and that Russia will achieve its war goals “in any case” but would prefer to achieve these goals diplomatically. Putin and other Kremlin officials have consistently attempted to portray Ukraine as the intransigent party in peace negotiations for refusing to capitulate to Putin’s demands, despite Russia’s failure to offer meaningful concessions in return, and Putin again reiterated this point to Trump on April 29. Putin again asserted that Russia is performing well on the battlefield in order to justify his demand for Ukrainian capitulation. The premise of Putin’s claim remains false, however. Ukrainian forces continue to deny Russian significant advances in several sectors of the frontline, including in Russia’s priority objective of Donetsk Oblast, and are imposing increasing costs and casualties on Russian forces for these continued offensive operations. Ukraine has conducted significant counterattacks in southern Ukraine since January 2026 that have generated operational-level effects across the theater. Russians are increasingly feeling the costs of the war as Russia’s economy continues to face significant challenges, casualties continue to mount, and recruitment becomes more difficult. The Kremlin is very likely attempting to mitigate some of these costs by attempting to convince Trump and the West to push Ukraine to capitulate in a way that Russia’s full-scale invasion has failed to do and is obfuscating its own military and economic failures as part of this effort.
Well, after this press briefing, President Trump sent the following message on Truth Social.
During the press briefing President Trump noted, yet again, his profound disappointment with Europe, the U.K and NATO allies. Trump delivered praise for King Charles as a statesman but separated the political policy aspects of the U.K from his impression of the monarch.
These remarks about drawing down U.S. troop levels in Germany comes against the backdrop of German Chancellor Fredrich Merz being highly critical of President Trump’s intention to incapacitate Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. Chancellor Merz is looking for any distraction he can come up with to avoid the issue of a severely contracting German economy.
Most Americans do not fully appreciate how the German national identity is defined by their industrial economy. The traditional people of Germany have a self-image that is -in large measure- the result of their economic condition. Everything centers around industriousness. Weaken that a little bit and the hardcore German people get visibly angered.
Commissar and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, is also not happy. “In just 60 days of conflict, our bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €27 billion, without a single molecule of additional energy,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.” {CITATION}
For all reasonable intents and purposes President Trump has withdrawn (moral) support for Ukraine. At the same time President Trump has openly been questioning NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte about the seemingly irrelevant purpose of the alliance.
Now, we might think this is just some transitional matters that have been visited before in various peaks and valleys of the geopolitical relationship. However, that is not the case this time.
How do we know this time it is something far more significant?
Well, the EU is debating dropping their climate goals.
BRUSSELS — Energy companies will be able to break the EU’s pollution limits and get away with it, under measures being considered by the European Commission ahead of a gathering of EU leaders in June.
The EU executive is considering a “zero-penalty” option that would allow national authorities not to fine companies that break strict rules governing methane emissions scheduled to come into force next year, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. (link)
ZELENSKYY: “But I still get my money, right?“
Consciousness of Guilt – Fed Chairman Powell Refuses to Leave Fed Board After Term Expires, “I will leave when I think it’s appropriate to do so”
The Federal Reserve is reported to be historically apolitical, meaning all considerations are absent of politics. However, no individual Federal Reserve Chairman has been more overtly political than Jerome Powell.
Yesterday, after announcing yet again the Fed will not lower interest rates, Chairman Jerome Powell announced he will not leave the board of the federal reserve even after his term has expired and he is replaced by recently advanced Kevin Warsh. Powell said he plans to maintain a “low profile” as a governor, but it will be the first time since 1948 that a Federal Reserve Chairman has stayed on the board at the end of their chairmanship.
The Inspector General is currently reviewing the massive cost overrun for a new multi-billion-dollar Federal Reserve building that has been the heart of controversy since the initial $1 billion overrun was announced. “I’ve said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that,” Powell said.
Supreme Court Rules Racial District Gerrymandering Violates Constitution
Yesterday, in a very important 6-3 decision at the Supreme Court [Full pdf Ruling Here] the high court ruled in Louisiana -vs Callais that congressional districts drawn by considering race are an unconstitutional gerrymander. Race should not be a consideration in the drawing of district boundaries.
Chief Justice John Roberts had previously described Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District as a “snake” that stretches more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) to link parts of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge. “That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent for the three leftist, activist justices. “The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter,” Kagan wrote, referencing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
(Via Politico) – […] Alito said a revised interpretation of Section 2 was needed in part because of the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that the Constitution does not prohibit gerrymandering for partisan purposes. As a result, he suggested, plaintiffs in voting discrimination lawsuits are now often “dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb.”
“Failing to account for political considerations in redistricting … can allow plaintiffs to undo a State’s legitimate, non-racial decisions under the banner of Section 2,” Alito wrote, appearing to express concern that Democrats could use voting rights lawsuits for partisan purposes rather than to target racial discrimination.
“If race and politics are not disentangled and a Section 2 claim is cynically used as a tool for advancing a partisan end, the VRA’s noble goal will be perverted,” he wrote.
The high court’s decision is the culmination of a long-running battle in Louisiana over Black voters’ representation in Congress. The Supreme Court first heard argument in the case in March 2025, but the justices failed to issue a ruling and made the unusual decision to hear it again this term. (read more)
The leftist/activist justices (Kagan, Sotomayor and the DEI Justice Brown-Jackson), had intentionally been slow-walking their dissent opinion in order to delay the release of the high court ruling released today. The delay tactic was intended to stop ‘Republican’ states from using the majority ruling for redistricting purposes prior to this year’s midterm federal election.
Democrats and Community Activist groups are apoplectic that race is not permitted in the determination of congressional districts. Democrats could stand to lose up to 20 seats in the House of Representatives if race is no longer a factor in making district boundaries. Former President Barack Obama is highly upset at the decision:
President Trump celebrated the elimination of racism in congressional districting.
[SOURCE]