The financier K Ernesto Clarens is prosecuted for money laundering from public works

Lucia Salinas

11/11/2020 15:38

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 11/11/2020 4:01 PM

Judge Julián Ercolini prosecuted financier Ernesto Clarens, Sergio and Fausto Gotti and other defendants for having used a corporate and financial structure to

.

This is a cause related to corruption in public works where Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez are being tried for

In addition, the judge blocked him an embargo for 1,010 million pesos.

During 2019, the prosecution in charge of Gerardo Pollicita advanced in the investigation into the movement of funds of Clarens, the financier who knew how to own

, a firm that

that came from the State on behalf of of Gotti SA.

These firms were absorbed by Lázaro Báez through Grupo Austral, the holding company that Cristina Kirchner -according to Judge Ercolini's prosecution-, favored with 52 road contracts for 46,000 million pesos.

This investigation reveals

that Judge Ercolini now took for granted when prosecuting the financier

laundering operations.

"It has been possible to corroborate a new criminal operation through which the illicit association already investigated deployed

- with the collaboration of a large number of individuals -" he said.

According to the investigation, a series of maneuvers were carried out on an important portion of the “funds stolen from the National State through fraud in public works”,

the initial calculation showed

approximately

, at the official price of that time."

What was put in place was a "recycling mechanism based on the fiction of non-existent costs, with the aim of giving said funds the appearance of legality, distancing them from their spurious origin and turning them into cash, which forever obstructed their follow-up" .

Like any money laundering maneuver, it requires a preceding offense.

In this case, it was determined that

money

, the Kirchner family and part of their environment, the origin of the funds that were applied to said operations is

Linked to this main cause, the prosecutor Pollicita had determined that in clear "detriment of the public purse", the hypothesis being investigated in these proceedings consists of the criminal maneuver implemented between 2005 and 2009 "by means of which it was carried out a mechanism for recycling an important part of that money through the fiction of non-existent costs, in order to give said funds an appearance of legality, distancing them from their criminal origin in defrauding the National State ”.

Thus, Báez and Clarens -the latter accepted as “repentant” in the cause of the Cuadernos de las Coimas-, together with a group of collaborators, carried out

but devoid of purpose. commercial real, destined to grant legal clothing to 502 million pesos ”.

In other words, they feigned expenses and services between companies related to each other that, as specified by the prosecutor, were not actually carried out.

This was validated by Judge Ercolini.

This money was finally converted into cash,

".

This was achieved "thanks to a notorious departure from the provisions and regulations provided for accounting registration, the use of checks and the handling of cash, by the individuals who intervened in each of the stages," says the opinion .

For the prosecution, the context - the awarding of road works for Santa Cruz - constituted the "

Pollicita affirmed that all those involved had "knowledge of the illicit origin of the goods" and had "full will to give them that appearance of legality", something that was concluded during the investigation as a result of the "convergence of multiple indications - serious, precise and concordant - which revealed the illegitimacy of the funds subjected to this recycling process ”.

A maneuver with three stages

1) The channeling of funds to the Gotti company and the interposition of Invernes in its financial management.

It was estimated that 790,256,010 pesos were moved from Austral Construcciones to Gotti.

“The first company was allowed to divert a little more than a quarter of its income to the second, making it the bridge company for the maneuver;

All of this with the double objective of, on the one hand, to

and, on the other hand, to ensure the interposition in the maneuver of the Invernes company, controlled by financier Ernesto Clarens.

2) The accounting outflow of the money out of the Báez Group through

.

Faced with a “fictional operation of non-existent costs in public works”, the diversion of the funds taken from the National State of Austral Construcciones to Gotti not only allowed that money to be removed, apparently, from Lázaro Báez, but at the same time it was from It is very useful to more effectively conceal these “costs” —reflected in apocryphal invoices— among the millions of pesos of real expenses that Gotti faced to carry out the works.

3) The

, preventing their traceability.

The respective checks that would be destined to cancel those apocryphal invoices would not be drawn either against Austral - the main recipient of the stolen public funds - or against Gotti accounts, but against the accounts of Invernes, a Buenos Aires corporation dedicated to financial activities, without any relationship. visible with the fraud to the State, on which did not fall - at that time - any suspicion.

Thus, the court determined that Gotti was chosen by the “conductors of this criminal maneuver —Báez and Clarens— as the backbone of the operation, to constitute it as the bridge society“ between the true user of the apocryphal billing —Austral Construcciones— and Providers";

This is due to the fact that she was less exposed than Austral, she was not directly related to Báez, it was easier to hide those corresponding to non-existent services among her expenses ”.

On the other hand, it was determined that his administration had been intervened by Invernes, which would allow Clarens not only control of all the money that entered and left, but also that "payments for false services would not appear in the name of" buyer ”—Gotti— but from a third party —Invernes—”.