A Mexican politician accused of embezzlement has died of an apparent suicide after leaping to his death from a bridge.

Antonio Enrique Tarin Garcia, 37, was a high-ranking former official in Chihuahua, a state in northern Mexico bordering the U.S.

Tarin was under investigation when he killed himself Friday evening in the city of Chihuahua, El Pais reported.

Mexican politician jumps off bridge

The local Prosecutor's office confirmed they have opened an investigation into the death. Tarin was not serving in government at the time.

Before meeting his end, Tarin served as a treasurer in the administration of former Governor Cesar Duarte, who fled to Texas in 2017 as he faced a probe for embezzling millions of pesos. He was eventually captured in Florida before being extradited to Mexico last year.

Both Tarin and Duarte were associated with the notoriously corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominated Mexican politics for most of the 20th century.

Resisted arrest

Tarin made a dramatic effort to avoid an arrest when charges were filed against him in 2017, invoking immunity from prosecution as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico's equivalent to the House of Representatives.

At the time, Tarin was serving as a substitute legislator for the seat left vacant by former deputy Carlos Gerardo Hermosillo Arteaga, who had died in a car accident.

Tarin holed himself up in the congressional building and pledged to fight his arrest, saying, "I am innocent and I will never flee."

But the obstruction effort failed, and he was taken into custody months later in Mexico City on a separate arrest warrant.

Fate catches up

He was finally released in 2021 after four years of preventive detention with an ankle bracelet, and with ten cases open against him for stealing million in pesos from the public coffers.

Fate eventually caught up with Tarin, who police say drove in a private vehicle to a bridge in Chihuahua. Tarin's body will be transferred to his native town of Parral.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party was fined 28 million pesos as a penalty for the corruption of Duarte and his circle.

Corruption is a significant issue in Mexico, and its effects do not end there, as the United States continues to suffer the impacts of its neighbor's drug trade.