Ibar Pérez Corradi - Fausta's Blog

January 31, 2017 By Fausta

Argentina to stop foreigners with criminal records from entering the country

Op-ed in Spain’s El País:

Argentina adopts anti-immigrant rhetoric over public safety fears. Macri administration pledges to stop foreigners with criminal records from entering the country

Argentina’s foreign population is 4.5%, and foreign inmates serving time represent 6% of the prison population. The figures do not look alarming. Yet the government is providing another set of data that focuses on federal penitentiaries, and points to foreigners as being responsible for the most serious crimes, particularly drug trafficking.

“The foreign national population in the custody of the Federal Penitentiary Service has grown over the last years to reach 21.35% of the total prison population in 2016. In crimes linked to drugs, 33% of the people in the custody of the Federal Penitentiary Service are foreigners.”

The op-ed talks of Argentina as an open country. It does not mention that the drug cartels have taken notice.

Last year the WSJ reported that Argentina is becoming an international narcotics hub as cocaine traffickers have been flying south into Argentina from Bolivia:

Argentina doesn’t produce cocaine, but its porous borders, roads, rivers and ports make it a good transit point. Low chances of prosecution also attract drug dealers, says Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s security minister.

Since 1999, Argentina has successfully prosecuted only seven money-laundering cases, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest international narcotics report. That record has inspired traffickers from Colombia, Peru and Mexico to buy luxury homes and farmland—which can accommodate clandestine airstrips—to evade tougher controls farther north in South America and secure profitable southern supply routes, officials say.

As you may recall, back in 2008 I posted on how Mexican drug cartels can use Argentina as an entry (ephedrine/pseudoephedrine) and exit (cocaine) point, as the country became a hub for U.S. methamphetamine and European cocaine. By 2013, Argentina was believed to supply 70 tons of cocaine a year to Europe, a third of its annual consumption.

August 30, 2016 By Fausta

Argentina: Corradi sings about Cristina’s cabinet

A judge authorized the extradition of drug chief Ibar Pérez Corradi to the U.S., where he faces charges over the shipment of 80 doses of oxycodone to that country by private mail, but another judge moved to block the extradition.

While this goes on, Pérez Corradi is pending trial over the General Rodríguez triple murder of Sebastián Forza, Damian Ferron and Leopoldo Bina, involving methamphetamine trafficking, and he’s talking about the involvement of Cristina Fernández’s cabinet members (emphasis added):
Drug Dealer Claims He Was Under Ex-President Kirchner’s Protection. Corradi Says He Received Three False Identities While on the Run

After four years on the run, Corradi was arrested on Sunday, June 19 in Brazil, where he was expelled and taken to Paraguay. There, he faced charges of impersonation. On July 5, he was extradited to Argentina.
. . .
“I was given protection to disappear,” he said. “The day of the raid, I went through the door of my house and asked a policeman what had happened. And he tells me that they are looking for Pérez Corradi.”

He said those who gave him protection worked with him while trafficking ephedrine. He noted he paid US $750,000 per month to the former Chief of Staff Cristina Kirchner Anibal Fernandez, whom he accused of being involved in the trafficking operation.

He also accused the former head of the Federal Public Revenue Administration (AFIP) Ricardo Echegaray of being involved with the smuggling.

“Smuggling and ephedrine were the business of Echegaray under the protection of Anibal Fernandez,” he said.

Corradi denies being involved in the triple murder,

“I did not kill Forza, Bina and Ferron. I do not know who killed them,” Corradi said. “They had no way to hurt me, to steal my business … it is like a tiny baby came and slapped you; there is no way that would harm me. I had no reason to kill the three of them. If these three dead kids appear, as they appeared, linked to ephedrine, it is obvious that the business was going to fester and it was going to stop being business for everyone.”

July 12, 2016 By Fausta

Argentina: The ephedrine trade’s Perez Corradi is back

Ibar Pérez Corradi, alleged mastermind of the 2008 drug-related “Triple Murder” case has been extradited to Argentina. He had escaped to Brazil, where he was arrested, and deported to Paraguay, where a judge authorized his deportation to Argentina.

The cartels have been moving beyond borders. Back in 2008 I posted on how Mexican drug cartels can use Argentina as an entry (ephedrine/pseudoephedrine) and exit (cocaine) point, as the country became a hub for U.S. methamphetamine and European cocaine. By 2013, Argentina was believed to supply 70 tons of cocaine a year to Europe, a third of its annual consumption.

By last year, Cristina Fernåandez de Kirchner’s cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández was accused of involvement in drug trafficking by those involved in ephedrine trafficking in Jorge Lanata’s television program, Periodismo para Todos (Journalism for Everyone), or PPT.)

Here’s the full episode, in Spanish but NSFW,

Which brings us to Pérez Corradi,

Pérez Corradi is accused of being the brains behind the 2008 crime involving General Rodríguez, in which pharmaceutical executives Sebastián Forza, Damién Ferrón and Leopoldo Bina lost their lives. According to local press, they sold ephedrine to Pérez Corradi, who exported it to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel. The problem started when the executives supplied an adulterated shipment to take him out of business.

The brothers Cristian, Martín Lanatta and Víctor Schillaci have already been found guilty for the crime. The three of them were part of a spectacular escape at the end of 2015.

From jail, Martín Lanatta accused Cristina Kirchner’s former Cabinet Head of being behind the murders and of directing the ephedrine traffic into the country. This Tuesday, June 20, he accused Aníbal Fernández again of being an “assassin” and a “drug dealer.”

Lanatta (no relation to journalist Jorge Lanata) claims that Pérez Corradi is not linked to the Mexican cartels, contradicting the press reports on the case.

InSight Crime’s analysis points out,

Argentina’s triple murder case carries strong political overtones. In August 2015, a man sentenced to life in prison for his participation in the scheme told local media that Aníbal Fernández, the cabinet chief for former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, maintained ties to the ephedrine trade and had ordered the murders. Fernández vigorously denied the accusations, but Pérez Corradi’s arrest has once again put him — and the Kirchner administration’s possible links to ephedrine trafficking rings — under the microscope.

It remains to be seen whether Pérez Corradi will confess (and take the rap), or whether he will involve higher-ups in the Fernández de Kirchner’s government in exchange for leniency.