Mexico City, Mexico — The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) has confirmed the arrest of former Chihuahua Governor César Horacio Duarte Jáquez in Miami, Florida.
The announcement came from the Fiscalía General de la República (FGR) during Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s visit to the United States.
The FGR says the arrest of César Duarte is for extradition purposes. César Duarte has been red flagged with Interpol since March of 2017 at the request of the Attorney General of the Republic. The former governor of Chihuahua is wanted for various crimes related to embezzlement and the diversion of resources against the public treasury during his administration.
After the news of his arrest, current Chihuahua governor Javier Corral, said that the damage by César Duarte and his corrupt network amounts to nearly six billion peso and that his administration has 50 files for different cases of corruption.
“It is a triumph against the impunity that he enjoyed until today for the protection that the former president of the republic, Enrique Peña Nieto, gave him,” said Corral in a statement. He went on to thank and recognize the political will of the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador to finalize the extradition, along with the Attorney General of the Republic, Alejandro Gertz Manero and the Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, for having complied with the law and the Extradition Treaty in a timely and committed manner in the fight against corruption.
Corral noted that this has been a long, arduous, hard battle to ensure that the corrupt actions of the former governor are presented in court.
“At the end of his administration, the state of Chihuahua was left with a debt of almost 50 billion peso as a consequence of the abuse in the management of public funds, also compromising the future income of Chihuahuas,” he said.
