MIAMI — The man once known in Mexico as the "El Chapo of tax fraud" did not move tons of cocaine or wage bloody battles against rivals. Instead, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Puga allegedly built a billion-peso empire through fake invoices, phantom companies, and money-laundering schemes that reached the highest levels of government. His story, now unfolding in a U.S. immigration courtroom, has all the elements of a modern thriller: luxury, power, corruption, and the kind of downfall that links Mexico City's political elite to Miami's real-estate market.
