Mayor accused of faking her kidnapping in $2 million embezzlement scheme in Mexico

A Mexican mayor allegedly faked her own kidnapping to embezzle $2 million worth of government funds disguised as ransom, local authorities said Thursday.

Nancy Napoles, the municipal president of Tenancingo, several hours outside Mexico City, has proclaimed her innocence in a video posted to social media, calling the accusations “politicized.”

Napoles belongs to the ruling Morena party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has made combating corruption one of the pillars of her administration.

Prosecutors said they requested Napoles give testimony on July 9 for the “simulation of a kidnapping.” There are no arrest warrants against her, unlike her husband and brother-in-law, who are on the run.

Armed men forced Napoles out of her car at gunpoint, according to the prosecutor’s office, basing the case on the testimony of three now-arrested “kidnappers.”

Authorities suggested that during her captivity her captors threatened to kill Napoles and her family if they didn’t pay “40 million pesos in exchange for her freedom,” advising her that if they couldn’t pay the ransom — equivalent to $2.3 million — she would need “to take resources from the local government.”

But an unsuspecting witness who saw the mayor being forced into a car upended the plan when he tipped off the police, who started a search and forced the mayor to abandon the mission.

Prosecutors also released images showing what they say was the fake kidnapping.

A subsequent investigation revealed inconsistencies in her story, suggesting that the mayor’s husband and brother-in-law planned the “false kidnapping” to claim public money that “was already embezzled, creating a justification for the money.”

Napoles denied the accusation and said she was willing to cooperate with authorities to clarify what happened so “the guilty actors are punished.”

Other top Mexican officials have been accused of criminal activity in recent months. In April, the U.S. charged the governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials with drug trafficking and weapons offenses.

Last year, a mayor from a western Mexico town was arrested as part of a probe into a suspected drug cartel training camp where human bones and clothing were found.