Lucia Salinas
07/04/2020 - 16:09
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Natalia Mercado is the El Calafate prosecutor who, together with Judge Carlos Narvarte, are investigating the murder of Fabián Gutiérrez, ex-secretary of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office is the daughter of Governor Alicia Kirchner and niece of the Vice President.
With less public exposure, Natalia Mercado was left out of the money laundering investigations that fall on her family. Her sister Romina Mercado is prosecuted along with her cousins Máximo and Florencia in the Hotesur case (the hotel firm) and Los Sauces (the real estate company) for money laundering operations with the vice president.
However, when the first raids ordered by Judge Claudio Bonadio took place, at the Alto Calafate hotel they were received by the former President's niece.
Romina Mercado with her sister Natalia, Florencia Kirchner, Máximo and Rocío García - Photo: OPI Santa Cruz / Francisco Muñoz
His participation was pointed out by the opposition since he worked as a prosecutor in the town where four of the tourist complexes are under judicial investigation .
He always worked as a prosecutor in the tourist village, before the age of 35 and always with the same position. And he had greater exposure for his work when he had the duty to investigate his uncles, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner for the acquisition of 200,000 square meters of fiscal land in El Calafate. The boutique hotel Los Sauces Casa Patagónica was built on that surface.
This was the case of the sale of land at 7.5 pesos per square meter, a business taken advantage of by the Kirchners, Lázaro Báez and an extensive list of former officials, and this purchase led to a judicial complaint for alleged influence peddling, violation of the duties of a public official and aggravated fraud against the State, where former mayor Néstor Méndez was targeted. That listing included Romina Mercado.
Despite being challenged, the provincial Justice endorsed that the prosecutor investigate her uncles and sister. In addition, in connection with the Kirchner companies investigated in the Comodoro Py Courts, there is Patricio Ricardo Pereyra Arandia , who was a member of the Board of Hotesur until the end of 2014, and husband of the prosecutor Mercado.