As part of the combo of measures to force calm in the exchange market, Customs led on Tuesday raids on at least twenty financial institutions in the City, to have information on alleged "trout companies" that bought dollars in the official market and benefited from the exchange roll. The operation was headed by the head of the agency, Guillermo Michel.
Specifically, Customs sought information on 46 companies and 13 people who would have imported trout to get dollars in the official market and then sell them in the parallel and win with the exchange gap. All this would have been done through remittances abroad and triangulation with accounts based in the United States.
"The maneuver investigated is the well-known 'financial roller', where companies – without economic substance and falsifying documentation – made transfers to LLC companies incorporated in the state of Florida (USA) to make dollars at the official value and then sell them in the blue market, "they explained in the agency.
In the file, in charge of Judge Pablo Yaradola, 233 remittances abroad are investigated for about US $ 5.3 million, an average of US $ 22,500 per transfer to try to pass "under the radar".
The AFIP Customs, the plaintiff in the criminal case of aggravated smuggling, evasion and money laundering, with the collaboration of the National Gendarmerie, carried out simultaneous raids on twenty financial institutions to obtain information and documentation related to the irregular operations of foreign trade, purchases, sales and transfers of foreign currency carried out by forty-six (46) companies and thirteen (13) individuals involved in the maneuver.
The concepts used were "B05 - Advance payments for imports of goods" and "B06 - Deferred payments for imports of goods" and were justified by false imports of computers and TV screens. Even couriers with trout invoices were used.
The criminal case is filed in the Economic Criminal Court No. 2, in charge of Dr. Pablo Yadarola, and acts the prosecutor in Criminal and Economic No. 2, Emilio Gerberoff. The case is being handled under judicial secrecy.
Among the 46 legal entities are investigated in addition to the four false importing companies that made remittances abroad, real estate and investment companies that were used to launder the profits of the financial roller.
The prosecution requested a series of precautionary measures to secure registrable assets, bank accounts and financial assets, such as the preventive seizure of accounts and the general inhibition of assets of those involved.
As plaintiff in the criminal case, and as it did in the NRG case, Customs activated the use of information exchange agreements with the United States to obtain the names of the attorneys of the bank accounts of the LLC companies of that country.
"From the Customs we understand that the controls that should have been carried out by the COMEX account executives of the banks should have been more rigorous and as plaintiffs in the case we are going to ask to investigate each of the folders that the companies presented to the banks to request the transfer abroad, the crossing of calls of each branch manager and the assets of the employees of the banks that participated in operations," said Guillermo Michel, Director General of Customs.
And he added: "At present, the Single Current Account of Foreign Trade that SIRA incorporated put order to foreign trade and allows state agencies to control in real time the remittances abroad, giving greater traceability to the operation."