Mexican union leader ‘embezzled £100 million’

A union leader known as Mexico’s most powerful woman has been arrested on corruption charges.

Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers, is accused of embezzling more than £100 million to pay for property, private planes and plastic surgery.

Ms Gordillo, 68, was held yesterday after landing at Toluca Airport near Mexico City on a private flight from San Diego.

The former school teacher from rural Chiapas state displays her opulence openly with designer clothes and bags, bodyguards, expensive cars and properties including a penthouse in the affluent Polanco neighbourhood in the capital. She is known simply as “la maestra” or “the teacher”.

Her arrest came a day after President Enrique Pena Nieto signed into law education reforms intended to change a system dominated by Ms Gordillo’s union in which teaching positions could be sold or inherited.

Attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam said Ms Gordillo is accused of embezzling two billion pesos (about £103 million) from union funds. Prosecutors said they had detected nearly £2 million of spending at American department store Neiman Marcus, more than £11,000 in US cosmetic surgery bills and the purchase of a home in San Diego for well over £500,000.

“We are looking at a case in which the funds of education workers have been illegally misused, for the benefit of several people, among them Elba Esther Gordillo,” said Mr Karam.

The investigation started in December after Santander Bank alerted the authorities to large bank transfers.

The attorney general denied that Ms Gordillo’s arrest was politically motivated and said the authorities had been expecting her return for a union national congress starting today in Guadalajara.

Union leaders who were already gathered there last night were meeting to decide how to respond to the arrest, said a spokeswoman.

No one from Ms Gordillo’s legal team has responded to the allegations, but in the past she has denied any wrongdoing.