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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Argentina: Cristina charged with money laundering . . . for the 4th time


Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, along with her children, has been charged with money laundering. When the news popped up last week, I thought it was an old news item.

It is, and it isn’t: This is the fourth time she’s been charged with money laundering.

DW has the story:
Argentina ex-President Cristina Kirchner charged with money laundering

Argentina ex-President Cristina Kirchner has been criminally charged for the fourth time, and her passport has been confiscated. The latest charges stem from alleged money laundering in real estate ventures.

I guess she won’t be dropping by the Seychelles any time soon now that they took her passport (link in Spanish). DW continues,

Former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner was formally charged with money laundering and running a criminal association related to real estate dealings, the country’s Judicial Information Service said on Tuesday.

Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015, already faces trial in a separate case for alleged financial mismanagement in office.

It is the fourth set of criminal charges to beset the former president. Judge Claudio Bonadío said Kirchner was criminally responsible for being part of an illicit association, which she headed, and involved in laundering assets of illicit origin. The charges were aggravated by the fact that Kirchner was a government official and was involved in negotiations incompatible with her position as president, the judge said.

A family affair

Also charged were Kirchner’s two children, Florencia and Maximo, who is currently a member of congress. Businessmen Cristobal Lopez and Lazaro Baez were also prosecuted as head of a company set up by the Kirchners which owned several hotels in Santa Cruz province.

The latest investigation turned up fourteen houses she “never declared” to the anti-corruption or the tax authorities. (How does one manage that, I wonder?)

In addition to the money laundering cases, let’s not forget that Cristina has pending charges for allegedly ordering Argentina’s central bank to illegally trade derivatives, which cost the country $5.5 billion.

$5.50 says she doesn’t serve time.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Argentina: Cristina indicted, again

on corruption charges related to Austral Construcciones, owned by Lázaro Báez involving contracts from 2003-2015.

Former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner Indicted in Corruption Case. Indictment is connected to infrastructure projects awarded to company owned by a close associate

On Tuesday, Judge Ercolini said many of the road projects in Santa Cruz were awarded to construction company Austral Construcciones. The company is owned by businessman Lázaro Báez, with whom the Kirchners had long-standing business ties dating back to when Mr. Kirchner was governor of Santa Cruz in the 1990s.

The judge, who ordered about $640 million in Mrs. Kirchner’s assets be frozen, wrote in the document that the former president had played a chief role in a scheme to divert state resources to Austral.

The document said Mrs. Kirchner and her husband created the institutional setup for the corruption ring to succeed and passed decrees that allowed funds to be directed and controlled so that they reached Mr. Báez through the awarding of public-road works.

The NYT reports,

The charges focus on 52 projects in the southern province of Santa Cruz, where Néstor Kirchner was governor for more than a decade until he became president of Argentina in 2003.

Cristina was also indicted this year on charges that she ordered the country’s central bank to illegally trade derivatives, costing the country about $5.5 billion. She’s under investigation in several other cases.

Related:

Lázaro Báez busted.

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Argentina: Leonardo sings

No, not the late Leonardo Favio (the singer/film director), but Leonardo Fariña, associate of Lázaro Báez, who claims Báez and Ernersto Kirchner conspired to steal public money.

The WSJ obtained the court testimony:
Testimony Links Argentine Ex-President’s Late Husband With Plot to Steal Millions. Former associate says contractor conspired with Néstor Kirchner to steal federal money

Lázaro Báez, a top government construction contractor and close friend of Mr. Kirchner, plotted with other officials to carry out “a systematic plan to steal money from federal coffers,” according to 85 pages of testimony unsealed by Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello.The accusation by Leonardo Fariña, a former associate of Mr. Báez, could have broad political and legal consequences for Mrs. Kirchner.

Fariña is now under witness protection,

Earlier this week, Judge Casanello indicted Mr. Báez and five othersin connection with allegations that he plotted with federal officials to bilk the state by overbilling hundreds of millions of dollars in public-works projects awarded between 2003 and 2015, when the Kirchners were in power.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court has urged the judge to try to recover any stolen funds. According to Mr. Fariña, Mr. Báez stored ill-gotten cash haphazardly in places such as his basement cellar, where humidity and mold ruined some of it.

They forgot the DampRid, but the plan rolled right along,

Mr. Fariña said Messrs. Báez and Kirchner organized a five-step plan to defraud taxpayers. The plan allegedly consisted of overbilling public projects, getting paid in advance for doing them, creating fake invoices, bribing officials and laundering the proceeds.

Fariña claims that the late Néstor didn’t quite reveal to Cristina and their son Måximo just how much money was in the cellar. That ought to qualify as today’s Capt. Louis Renault moment.

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Argentina: Lazaro Baez busted

“Who the hey is Lázaro Báez?,” you may ask.

Lázaro is a leading government contractor and associate of former president Cristina Kirchner,

Argentine prosecutors alleged that Mr. Báez, whose flagship construction company was set up days before Mr. Kirchner took office in 2003 and who made hundreds of millions of dollars through public projects, transferred money abroad through a global network of shell companies. Officials of Mrs. Kirchner’s administration have said the allegations had political motivations.

For Mossack Fonseca, when it rains, it pours,

Many of these firms were set up in the U.S. state of Nevada by the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of global scrutiny.

(No, Báez is not on the list.)

The Panama-based law firm has denied any wrongdoing. On Tuesday, it said that it has no legal liability for the actions of the companies and that it has been the victim of a massive data breach. Mossack Fonseca, which acted as a “resident agent” for the companies, told The Wall Street Journal in 2014 that the companies had “no ties whatsoever to Lázaro Báez or corruption scandals in Argentina.”

The memes are up,

A congresswoman presented a legal complaint against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on charges of illicitly acquiring wealth and forging public documents, but Cristina says her family has no offshore accounts, instead of answering the actual charges.

Which, by the way, is a swipe at Macri, and a presumption of guilt on a common business practice.

For background (in Spanish) on the Kirchners, here’s Jorge Lanata’s La ruta del dinero K (The Route of the K-Money)

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