In a move that has sent shockwaves through Mexico’s political landscape, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, an 86-year-old fixture of the nation’s elite bureaucracy, resigned on November 27, 2025, just two years shy of completing his nine-year term. Appointed in 2019 as Mexico’s first “independent” prosecutor under reforms championed by then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Gertz’s departure, framed as a graceful exit to an ambassadorship in an unnamed “friendly country”, has instead amplified long-simmering accusations of corruption, abuse of power, and personal vendettas. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who succeeded AMLO in October 2024, nominated him for the diplomatic role, allowing him to “continue serving my country” while freeing her to overhaul the justice system amid escalating security crises.
Gertz’s tenure, spanning over six tumultuous years, was marked by high-profile pursuits of corruption and organized crime, yet overshadowed by allegations that he weaponized the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) for selective justice. Critics, including former presidential legal advisor Julio Scherer Ibarra, accused him in 2022 of pressuring judicial interventions to deny amparos (protective injunctions) to political adversaries, such as Morena lawmakers Laura Morán and Alejandra Cuevas. The latter’s imprisonment for the 2015 death of Gertz’s brother, Federico, was decried as a familial vendetta, with Cuevas detained for over a year before her release on procedural grounds. This case escalated to Mexico’s Supreme Court, highlighting tensions between the FGR and the judiciary.
Financial improprieties further tarnished his legacy. Gertz was implicated in the ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks as vice president of Jano Ltd., a Cayman Islands entity tied to his family’s wealth, raising red flags on tax avoidance and asset concealment. He denied knowledge of the company, attributing it to his brother’s management, but the revelation fueled claims of elite shielding. Under his watch, probes into scandals like Odebrecht bribes and Pemex corruption,involving ex-CEO Emilio Lozoya, yielded mixed results, with Lozoya imprisoned but broader elite accountability elusive. Gertz also faced scrutiny for denying U.S. extradition requests in politically charged cases, such as that of former Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos, acquitted amid allegations of FGR interference.
The resignation’s timing, mere hours after Sheinbaum publicly urged “greater coordination” between federal and state prosecutors on security, suggests a orchestrated pivot. Sheinbaum, a scientist-turned-leader inheriting AMLO’s leftist mantle, has diverged on security to appease U.S. demands for cartel crackdowns and migration controls, issues where Gertz’s prickly nationalism clashed with Washington. Recent FGR successes, like extraditing 55 traffickers including Rafael Caro Quintero to the U.S., underscore this shift, but impunity rates hovering at 95% demand deeper reforms.
Speculation swirls around Gertz’s successor: Ernestina Godoy, former Mexico City prosecutor and Sheinbaum’s legal advisor, tops the list, praised for her prosecutorial record but untested nationally. The Senate has 20 days to vet candidates, potentially installing Godoy provisionally. Opposition figures like PRI leader Alejandro Moreno decry the vacancy as destabilizing, while critics like Scherer hail it as ending a “dark chapter.”
Globally, the episode symbolizes Latin America’s entrenched elite influence, where aging power brokers like Gertz, a PRI-era survivor who navigated Fox’s security chief role and AMLO’s anti-corruption purge, evade full reckoning. His ambassadorship, details pending, could strain U.S.-Mexico ties on fentanyl flows and border security, as Sheinbaum balances domestic reform with bilateral pressures. At a time when cartels recruit forcibly (as in the Teuchitlán ranch scandal Gertz downplayed), this reshuffle tests Sheinbaum’s promise of “hugs, not bullets” evolving into accountable governance. With Mexico’s justice system in flux, Gertz’s exit may catalyze change, or merely shuffle the deck of impunity.