Retired General Gerardo Mérida Sánchez, former Secretary of Public Security of Sinaloa, left the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, where he had remained since May, while his defense negotiates with US prosecutors a possible cooperation agreement that could make him an informant for the United States.
According to the record of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Mérida Sánchez left prison on August 11, after almost three months in custody. His departure occurs while the criminal proceedings against him remain open for alleged links to Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The hearing scheduled for August 4 was postponed and federal Judge Katherine Polk Failla has not yet set a new date.
The possibility of Mérida Sánchez cooperating with the US authorities had already been pointed out from the first weeks of the process; journalistic versions even claim that since July the former official faced two options: negotiate with federal prosecutors or take the case to trial. An eventual agreement could include benefits in the sentence in exchange for information relevant to the investigations.
Mérida Sánchez, 66, was arrested on May 11 in Arizona, after entering the United States through the Nogales border crossing. He was later transferred to New York.
The Department of Justice and the DEA accused him, along with nine other current and former Sinaloa officials, of conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess such weapons.
The DEA reported that these crimes can carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years and up to life in prison.
Mérida Sánchez pleaded not guilty to the charges at her first appearance.
The accusation maintains that, during his tenure as Secretary of Public Security of Sinaloa, between September 2023 and December 2024, he received more than $100,000 per month in cash from “Los Chapitos.”
The Department of Justice maintains that Mérida would have alerted the criminal group about at least 10 operations against drug laboratories during 2023, which would have allowed personnel, drugs and equipment to be removed before the authorities intervened.
The case is part of a federal investigation of the Southern District of New York that also involves the licensed governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, Senator Enrique Inzunza Cázarez, the licensed mayor of Culiacán, Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, and other current and former officials.
The indictment was presented by a federal grand jury and unsealed on April 29, 2026. The DEA said the defendants allegedly collaborated with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to introduce large quantities of drugs into the United States in exchange for bribes and political support.
Mérida Sánchez arrived at the Sinaloa Public Security Secretariat in September 2023, during the government of Rubén Rocha Moya. He left office in December 2024, after a career spanning several decades in the Mexican Army.
His surrender to the US authorities was voluntary. The Mexican Security Cabinet then reported that he entered the United States from Hermosillo, Sonora, and crossed through Nogales, Arizona, where he remained in the custody of federal marshals.
Now, his release from the Brooklyn penitentiary opens a new stage of the process. The fact that he has left prison does not mean that he has been acquitted or that the charges have been dropped. There is also, so far, no public confirmation that he has closed a formal cooperation agreement with prosecutors.
