A Famous Mexican TV Host Is on the Run After Allegedly Embezzling $146 Million

MEXICO CITY — A famous Mexican television host is on the lam after being accused of embezzling billions of pesos.

Inés Gómez Mont and her lawyer husband, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Puga, reportedly fled Mexico as the authorities prepared to issue an arrest warrant against the couple alleging illicit enrichment and embezzlement. The Mexican prosecutor's office has begun the process of requesting Interpol to issue an international red notice for both Gómez Mont and Álvarez Puga, who are believed to be hiding out in the United States.

Authorities allege that the couple embezzled nearly 3 billion pesos—roughly $146 million USD—of public resources through almost 1,500 banking operations with shell companies in 2016 and 2017. Her husband, Álvarez Puga, had previously faced fraud allegations although he never went to trial.

Gómez Mont, 38, took to Instagram and her more than 2 million followers to write that “We have not had access to that warrant, nor the proof that justifies it.”

“We are preparing to face this process and exercise all our rights,” she continued.

But on September 14, a former employee anonymously alleged to local news that the couple and their children fled to the United States to evade justice prior to the issue of the warrant after learning that they were being investigated. It's been reported that the family owns several U.S. properties, including a Miami mansion formerly owned by music icon Cher.

Gómez Mont first rose to prominence as a teenager in the late ’90s while acting in a telenovela, and later as the host of numerous talk shows and for her work as a sideline sports reporter.

Internationally, she's most notorious for a TV stunt at the 2008 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. Gómez Mont, donning a white wedding dress, became the center of attention at a press conference surrounded by reporters when she told then-Patriots quarterback Tom Brady that she loved him, and asked him to marry her.

Brady, who married his supermodel partner Gisele Bündchen the following year, politely declined, saying he was a “one-woman man.” Brady then said. “You are beautiful, and any one who has the opportunity to marry you would be a lucky man.”

As it turns out, Brady was the lucky one for not accepting the marriage proposal. Otherwise, he might have been on the run with Gómez Mont today.