A son of Báez and his lawyer are blamed for the illegal sale of wool for 1.5 million dollars

Lucia Salinas

02/17/2020 - 17:05

• Clarín.com
• Politics

The fate of about 250,000 kilos of wool is the new focus of dispute in the Báez clan. One of Lázaro Báez's children, Leandro, asked to sue his father's lawyer, Elizabeth Gasaro, for the cause where an illegal sale of wool is investigated. The requirement to confront the legal representative of Lázaro Báez will be repeated for the second time this Tuesday, since according to the youngest of the contractor K's male children, she was “aware of the commercial operation carried out through informal channels” for 1,500 .000 dollars .

The controversy occurs a few days after the claim of Norma Calismonte (ex-wife of Báez) for 2 million pesos that supposedly would circulate in concept of rents of real estate of the Austral Group but that the family does not perceive, and also adds to another proposal: robberies and looting property.

More than 600,000 hectares distributed along the Santa Cruz land integrate the real estate empire of Lázaro Báez, whose value Justice valued at 250 million dollars. Among the 1,420 properties he acquired during the Kirchner era, businessman K has 60 rooms. The Báez family now seeks to rent them to be exploited by a third party and prevent them from deteriorating and losing value. All these properties are seized and the company that manages the fields has judicial veterans.

The justice determined that the origin of the money that between 2004 and 2015 increased Báez's assets by 12,127% is illegal. P roduct of washing maneuvers and public works that he received from the government of Cristina Kirchner.

With the debacle of the Báez empire, from Austral Agro - the firm that manages the fields - they decided to rent the rooms, because they began to detect looting and robberies in some helmets. But also, because he had won to mobilize and market. The person in charge of this company was Leandro Báez, until the Federal Oral Court 4 (TOF 4) - which judges the Báez family for money laundering - ordered that the company be intervened.

But the problems continued. The prosecutor before the Court, Abel Córdoba, said that the judicial intervention in Austral Agro detected irregular movements of money.

Then another fight began in the Báez family, and that resulted in a judicial investigation by Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti.

Elizabeth Gasaro - lawyer from Lázaro - told the intervener that Leandro Báez sold wool through informal channels, that is, in black and behind her. But the son of businessman K maintains that it was she who carried out the commercial operation under investigation . The lawyers Alejandro Baldini and Roberto Herrera asked for a confrontation between them. "It is necessary to explain how the whole maneuver was done," they told Clarin and added: "Leandro ran the wool because he knew that Gasaro wanted to sell it and she knew that the wool had moved and therefore informs the intervener that there was no wool, and that Leandro supposedly had sold it. An inmate more than settle in federal justice for millions of dollars.

It all started with the report of the intervener appointed by Justice in Austral Agro, Susana Inés Santrasola. His report presented another situation involving the lawyer of Lázaro Báez. "According to comments from the area, the wool has been sold in black not to the usual suppliers and transferred without guides on behalf of Austral Agro, probably from a neighboring stay that acted as a facilitator," detailed in the letter of the responsible for the firm.

As noted before TOF 4, Elizabeth Gasaro, a lawyer from Lázaro Báez, admitted knowing the realization "of these wool sales operations through informal channels, a circumstance that justifies the need to make payments to Austral staff and suppliers. Agro. "

It all started with information received by the intervener by people in the area, who referred to “missing wool that had been sold in black”: “Dr. Elizabeth Gasaro said by telephone to know the realization of these wool sales operations through informal channels, a circumstance that Leandro Báez justified to meet personnel costs ”.

The company's intervener said that this statement "is not legal and it is likely that it has not even responded to reality" , since the date of the designation of the intervention "was owed to the staff since October 2017, as well as to suppliers and to greater abundance the harvest 2017/2018 was paid for this intervention as a precondition to be able to require the same supplier the new shearing ".

Justice believes that the Báez family illegally sold 250,000 kilos of wool for $ 1,500,000 , funds that did not enter the company's judicial account.

It will be Judge Capuchetti who must spawn this mess. In its court, it will be sought to determine if these money movements were carried out to avoid "controls" of Justice . The Báez family is seized at 3 billion dollars in total and all companies have judicial interventions.

The situation was complicated, since the TOF intervened Austral Agro before the lack of collaboration of Leandro Báez. He accused him of being faced with a "serious subtraction maneuver of a large volume of wool from the coffers of the company to be investigated, since they would be avoiding the restrictive measures that weigh on the company or emptying it of its capital ".

In this context, Báez's son defends himself and holds his father's lawyer accountable. "It was she who proposed to Leandro to sell the wool through informal channels . " Her lawyers Baldini and Herrera insist: "Gasaro accused Leandro when she admitted to knowing those operations."