The fugitive wife of a disgraced former Mexican governor accused of looting £2.4billion from his state is expected to avoid prosecution due to failure to extradite her from the UK.
Karime Macías Duarte, 43, is reportedly living in a £10,000-a-month rented flat in London‘s premium neighbourhood of Belgravia, just a stone’s throw away from Buckingham Palace.
She has been the subject of an Interpol red notice after the governor of Veracruz Miguel Ángel Lunes Linares issued a warrant for her arrest.
Macías is the wife of Javier Duarte who is facing a nine-year prison term in Mexico after he and his associates creamed billions from the state, which he ran between 2010 and 2016.
Their three children are said to attend an elite London private school.
Karim Macías was pictured living it up in Belgravia, London’s most exclusive district as she is investigated for £4.7m fraud
Her extradition has been sought since last October, but she may avoid prosecution as the statute of limitations runs out of her alleged 112million pesos (£4.7million) fraud next year.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has to agree to the Mexican authorities’ request to extradite her before it can be put in front of a judge.
The Home Office refused to confirm if the request had been approved last night, according to The Times.
Britain’s failure to extradite Macías comes amid mounting pressure from Mexico, who said her crime comes with a prison sentence of five to 12 years.
It comes as Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is set to arrive in Mexico City tomorrow amid the UK’s vow to invest £60million over the next five years to fight corruption in the central American country.
Macías , also known as Karime Tubilla, is believed to have fled to London when she was accused of stealing millions while chair of a charitable foundation set up to help poor families in the state.
Macías is infamous in Mexico for a diary discovered by the authorities in which she had reportedly written the phrase ‘I deserve abundance’ over and over again
According to local reports in Mexico she is ‘seeking asylum’ in the UK, meaning her extradition request is likely to take years to go through the courts.
Speaking in an interview from jail earlier this year, Duarte said his family are living ‘in austerity’ and his wife was ‘only living on £7,500’ as a ‘victim of political persecution’.
He added that she complained she was ‘forced to take public transport’ and ‘didn’t have any servants’.
However, in May, a video circulated of Macais’s life in London, where it showed she was ‘living the high life’ living just feet away from Sloane Square tube station – near to both Clarence House and Buckingham Palace.
It is claimed on a normal day Macias will put her children on the school bus before heading out for yoga and gym sessions, as well as indulging in facials and massages.
Hidden camera footage showed her withdrawing cash from an ATM and speaking to the camera operator as a red London bus passes in the background.
Macías is infamous in Mexico for a diary discovered by the authorities in which she had reportedly written the phrase ‘I deserve abundance’ over and over again, apparently to justify her and husband’s alleged corruption.
She later admitted the diaries were hers, but claimed the phrase was of a ‘spiritual nature’.
Home Secretary Priti Patel (left) has to agree to the Mexican authorities’ request to extradite her before it can be put in front of a judge. The Home Office refused to confirm if the request had been approved last night. It comes as Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is set to arrive in Mexico City tomorrow amid the UK’s vow to invest £60million over the next five years to fight corruption in the central American country
Macías has apparently been living in the UK since April last year. In December a letter apparently written by her was published by the news site Animal Politico in which she claimed she had to leave Mexico because of ‘persecution’.
Macias also said she wanted back personal items including paintings, luxury pens, crystal, golf clubs and books that she said were seized by prosecutors without a warrant.
In a press conference in May Governor Linares claimed Macías’ monthly expenses in London are £60,000.
He said of his predecessor’s wife: ‘We thought she was living modestly on the outskirts of London… we were wrong, we were surprised. In London, she is continuing a life of luxury and corruption.
Javier Duarte leaves a hearing at the Courts Tower in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 2017. Last year, he pleaded guilty last year to charges of criminal association and laundering millions of state funds, to splash out on properties and art
‘The money of Veracruz citizens is still being used to live in the lap of luxury.’
Last year, he pleaded guilty last year to charges of criminal association and laundering millions of state funds, to splash out on properties and art.
He had 41 properties seized, as part of plea deal that saw him get nine years behind bars.
Thousands died during his term, with 166 bodies being found in a mass grave last month.
Veracruz has long been racked by violent crime and is an important trafficking route for drug gangs moving narcotics north towards the U.S. border.
Agriculture and oil-rich Veracruz, on Mexico’s Gulf coast, is one of Mexico’s largest states, and it has historically been a stronghold of Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Duarte was a PRI stalwart for years until he was expelled from the PRI in October 2016.
He resigned his position as governor that same month, a few weeks before his six-year term was due to end.
The following June, the opposition National Action Party won a hotly contested race to succeed Duarte in a stinging defeat for the PRI.
Lawlessness in Veracruz spiked under Duarte, with top Mexican auditor ASF saying in 2016 that the irregularities in public funds under his rule were the highest amount it had ever seen.
Duarte’s case became emblematic of government failure to root out corruption and undermined support for the PRI, which has been Mexico’s dominant party for most of the past century.
His administration was accused of watering down medicines to give to child cancer patients before he fled to Guetemala, where he was captured and extradited in 2017.
