Mexico's attorney general issued an arrest warrant for Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte over alleged ties to organized crime and corruption, local media reported Tuesday.
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Last week, Duarte announced that he would step down almost two months before his term ends in order to face federal corruption investigations. However, he unexpectedly fled the state by helicopter Saturday and his whereabouts are unknown. His soon-to-be successor, Miguel Angel Yunes, a former congressional deputy from the conservative PAN party, claims to have even more evidence implicating him in the corruption charges. According to Yunes, the aircraft Duarte used to escape would have been facilitated by the acting Governor Flavin Rios.
Over the past months, Duarte has been investigated over allegations that he embezzled or misspent as much as US$2 billion since he took office nearly six years ago. That investigation, however, does not include the hundreds of people, including at least 17 journalists, who have either disappeared or been murdered on his watch.
Despite all of this, Duarte maintains his immunity as governor – which means that if he's arrested, authorities will have to open another trial just to remove his immunity. Currently, he cannot be banned from leaving the country.
Duarte belongs to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and was a close ally of President Enrique Peña Nieto. However, his own party has turned its back to him.
Corruption scandals, hundreds of bodies found in mass graves, human right violations, thousands of disappeared people and hundreds of femicides have marked Duarte's time in office, an official once named by Peña Nieto as a member of a new generation of politicians who were going to change Mexico. According to Mexico's finance ministry, Duarte left Veracruz with a public debt of US$583 million.