Crime
Mexican Prosecutor's Office confirms arrest warrants for presenter Inés Gómez Mont and her husband
The couple has been missing from public life for several months, and their whereabouts are unknown
January 21, 2022 12:44pm
Updated: January 21, 2022 4:29pm
The Mexican Attorney General's Office (FGR for its name in Spanish) confirmed on Thursday that it obtained arrest warrants for actress and television host Inés Gómez Mont, her husband, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Puga, and five other people for taking part in organized crime and operations with resources of illicit origin.
Three of the other people allegedly involved in the scheme have already been detained. "In the cases of those who fled the country, the corresponding red notice has been obtained, and we are waiting for international collaboration," the FGR added.
Gómez Mont, Álvarez Puga, and the other five alleged perpetrators conspired "to simulate operations and provide resources to this criminal organization, lowering tax burdens, and hiding operations, thus making it difficult to trace these resources," said the Prosecutor's Office.
To carry out these activities, they entered "various contracts with the Decentralized Administrative Body for Prevention and Social Rehabilitation of the Ministry of the Interior," for which they used digital tax receipts that "concealed false operations and appeared to be acts of commerce and provision of services that were not carried out," added the FGR.
The accused group includes three former public servants, who "were the ones who illegally facilitated the resources of the federal treasury, by entering illegal contracts," according to the Mexican Prosecutor's Office.
The FGR's investigation began in November 2019. In September 2021, it obtained arrest warrants for Gómez Mont and Víctor Manuel Álvarez Puga, which were granted by a federal judge based in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico.
Since October, Mexican authorities managed to get an Interpol red notice issued so that police from more than 190 nations could collaborate in locating the fugitives.
The couple has disappeared from public life for several months, and their whereabouts are unknown. In September, Gómez Mont said she was innocent in a post on her Instagram account.
"To be clear, I have never stolen a peso. Nor have I ever received money from those contracts, and much less have I ever seen or had 3 billion pesos in my life. I am a television host and a full-time mom. And under no circumstances do I belong to organized crime," she wrote.
