While he said he would temporarily step aside from the job, Rocha said the allegations against him were false and ill-intended in a statement issued by the Sinaloa government.

“I can look at my people and my family in the eye because I have not betrayed them and I will never betray them, and I will demonstrate that firmly at the moment when the institutions of justice of our country require it,” he said.

Rocha belongs to the ruling Morena party.

The US justice department’s move to accuse him and other Morena officials of conspiring with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to import massive quantities of narcotics into the US in exchange for political support and bribes has put Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum in an excruciating political position.

The US justice department, the US embassy in Mexico City and the Sinaloa state government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.