The U.S. government has charged the governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state and nine other current and former Mexican officials with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in a federal indictment. The indictment was unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan. It alleges the defendants played influential roles in helping the Sinaloa Cartel ship massive quantities of illicit drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Mexico's government said it soon after received extradition requests from the U.S. but did not say how it would respond. Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya called the accusations baseless and a political attack. Some of those indicted were members of the progressive ruling party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is seeking to offset mounting U.S. pressures.

US prosecutors charge 10 current and former Mexican officials with conspiring with Sinaloa Cartel to traffic drugs.

The Guerreros Buscadores and dozens of other groups in Mexico scour the country for people who are missing. More than 130,000 people have been reported missing since 2006, according to official records. It is perilous work in a perilous environment. Mexico is neither at war nor under a military dictatorship, yet thousands of people disappear every year amid cartel violence. Clandestine graves are discovered on a semiregular basis; more than 70,000 unidentified remains have piled up in morgues and cemeteries.