Claudia Sheinbaum’s government insists on the extradition to the United States of lawyer Victor Manuel Álvarez Boga, whom it considers to be the chief architect of a network of front companies that drained millions of resources from the treasury by issuing false invoices. The president confirmed on Monday that the Attorney General’s Office, where she has just appointed Ernestina Godoy, one of her closest officials, is taking the necessary steps to bring tax lawyers to Mexico and that the crimes he is accused of committing – organized crime, money laundering and tax evasion – will not go unpunished. The President confirmed in her morning conference that “extradition is being requested.” “We are very interested in ensuring that there is no impunity in this matter,” he stressed.
Álvarez Boga, who is married to popular TV presenter and actress Inés Gomez Montt – and whom the Attorney General’s Office considers to be an accomplice – was arrested last October by US immigration. Since then, the lawyer has faced an immigration trial in which the United States will determine whether or not to expel him from that country. In Mexico, there are two active arrest warrants against the lawyer and his wife, as well as an Interpol red card to arrest them for extradition purposes. Since September 2021, the FGR has accused the pair of embezzling nearly 3,000 million pesos from the Interior Department under President Enrique Peña Nieto, which was diverted through a structure of front companies that mimicked the agency’s service delivery.
According to Álvarez Boga’s immigration trial documents, which this newspaper reviewed, the lawyer was in the United States months before his arrest warrants were issued in Mexico. In July, when his usual stay in the North American country was about to expire, the lawyer went on a trip to the Bahamas. He was scheduled to return by plane, but returned to the United States by boat, without validating his entry ticket. Since then, he has lived irregularly in Florida, where he and his wife have amassed a huge real estate fortune, as documented by El País.
Álvarez Boga promoted his asylum claim in which he said he and his family were victims of persecution in Mexico as a result of their “conservative political positions.” The lawyer confirmed that he “fears returning to Mexico due to his political views and his belonging to a certain social group.” That is, the lawyer asserts that the Mexican government is looking for him for political motives and not for his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the treasury, a corrupt scheme in which he and his wife, according to the Attorney General’s Office, directly collected part of the transferred funds.
Álvarez Boga’s attorneys were able to delay his immigration expulsion by requesting a pretrial hearing. ICE records indicate Álvarez Puga remains in custody at a detention center in Miami, Florida. As for Gomez Montt, he is supposedly still free in that country. The web of collusion that Álvarez Boga wove in Mexico in the highest political circles allowed him to postpone his appearance before justice for as long as possible. It remains to be seen whether this protection net will continue to hamper the process under Sheinbaum and Prosecutor Godoy.