The troubled 2026 edition of the Miss Universe beauty pageant has descended further into scandal with the announcement that Mexican businessman Raúl Rocha Cantú, co-owner and president of the Miss Universe organization, is under investigation for alleged organized crime offenses related to drug trafficking, arms trafficking and fuel theft.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said on Wednesday that a federal judge had issued an arrest warrant against Rocha and 12 other unidentified people as part of the probe. The FGR has charged Rocha as part of an alleged network operating between Guatemala and Mexico.
El dueño de #MissUniverso, Raúl Rocha Cantú, pasó de las pasarelas a ser investigado por la #FGR. Estaría acusado de tráfico de armas provenientes de #Guatemala para venderlas a grupos delictivos como La Unión Tepito y el #CJNG. Hablamos con él y negó tener una orden de captura: pic.twitter.com/DvGSjx2TFz
— Nacho Lozano (@nacholozano) November 27, 2025
Rocha contends that the arrest warrant doesn’t exist. “It is completely false that I have an arrest warrant,” he told the newspaper El País.
But according to local media, the arrest warrant was issued on Sept. 15 in the state of Querétaro. The investigation began on Nov. 29, 2024, following an anonymous tip that accused Rocha and a network of connections of trafficking weapons and drugs from Mexico’s southern border.
The network, allegedly run and financed by Rocha, is also involved in fuel smuggling (known in Mexico as huachicoleo), supplying several gas stations with clandestine hydrocarbons in Mexico. The FGR has said his criminal organization smuggled illegal fuel in boats along the Usumacinta River, and then transported it in tanker trucks from Chiapas and Tabasco to Querétaro.
Rocha’s criminal organization is also alleged to be responsible for supplying weapons to the Gulf Cartel and the Veracruz Shadow Group.
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Though Rocha says there is no arrest warrant, prominent television journalist Carlos Loret de Mola reported that Rocha requested and received permission to be a protected witness in the investigation of the trafficking network.
As co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization (once the property of Donald Trump), Rocha’s legal woes add fuel to the growing suspicion that the crowning of Fátima Bosch, from the Mexican state of Tabasco, as Miss Universe 2025 was not entirely on the up and up. Though her victory, coming days after she was verbally abused by a high-ranking pageant official, was at first seen as a fairy-tail ending, her father’s relationship with Rocha has cast a cloud over her triumph.
Bosch is the daughter of Bernardo Bosch, a high-ranking official at state-owned Pemex, which has confirmed that it holds two multi-million-dollar contracts with Rocha. While Rocha, who also serves as Mexico’s Honorary Consul in Guatemala, has denied any collusion to rig the Miss Universe victory, he has acknowledged a multi-million dollar business relationship with Pemex.
Originally from the northern city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Rocha purchased 50% of the Miss Universe Organization in October 2023, in a transaction valued at US $16 million. With the purchase, he became co-owner and president of the Miss Universe Organization internationally.
With reports from El Universal, Latinus, El País and El Imparcial
