Vicentin: they investigate movements of money for 15,000 million pesos

Lucia Salinas

02/12/2021 11:13 AM

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 02/12/2021 11:31 AM

In the framework of the file where the granting of credits to the Vicentin Group during the Cambiemos government is investigated, the federal prosecutor

Gerardo Pollicita analyzes a money route of more than 15,000 million pesos

.

It seeks to determine if the cereal company carried out

money laundering

maneuvers

.

The Financial Information Unit (UIF) asked that the former executives of the firm also be charged with this crime.

After the lifting of the fiscal and banking secrecy of Vicentin since 2015, last year, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office received all the documentation regarding the financial movements of the company.

The list is extensive, and they count thousands of operations:

transfers of funds between the same group, with other companies, suppliers

, among others.

These movements total more than

15,000 million pesos in a three-month window.

In the study of the traceability of that money, the prosecution seeks to determine if Vicentin carried out money laundering maneuvers.

The directors of the company, such as the former authorities of Banco Nación, are accused of the crime of

fraudulent administration.

The case began as a result of the complaint made on January 27, 2020 by Fernando Miguez, president of the Foundation for Peace and Climate Change, as a result of the "First Report on the situation of the Vicentin firm" of January 16 of 2020 prepared by

Claudio Lozano

, who as director of Banco Nación analyzed the financial situation of the firm and the loans granted by the previous management of the financial institution when the company publicly announced that it was in a situation of "financial stress" that was not It would allow him to meet his obligations.

The complaint highlighted the possible existence of a maneuver by which

the State would have been harmed "through the irregular granting of loans by the Banco Nación

in favor of Vicentin, which allowed the company to accumulate a debt with the Banco de 18,500 million pesos, "which currently would be of uncertain collection since the company is in a state of default."

Therefore, the prosecutor requested a series of measures from the judge to advance the analysis of 73 emails and more than 300 files that entered the prosecution.

Now, more than a thousand movements of funds are being studied that involve a figure of more than 15,000 million pesos, according to

Clarín

from judicial sources.

In the case, the route of the money is investigated to "determine

if it was a self-generated crisis

" in order not to pay the debt, once it had been "irregularly obtained the refinancing."

Now, in addition, progress is being made on another line: determining whether there were money laundering maneuvers.

This responds to a presentation made by the FIU, where it accused

Mauricio Macri

, former officials, and the Vicentin Group

of money laundering

.

Then, the state agency was asked to report if Suspicious Operations Reports related to the cereal company have been made.

Javier Claudio Castelli, a lawyer for the UIF, had stated at the time that the granting of credits to Vicentin "not only implies a possible and considerable fraud against the Banco de la Nación Argentina", but there were also "

millionaire movements of funds to accounts off-shore

through complex money laundering maneuvers to whose investigation we want to contribute as closely as possible in time to the facts subject to analysis ".

For the prosecution, the maneuver began with the "irregular granting of millionaire loans in foreign currency to the firms Vicentin SA and Algodonera Avellaneda SA, departing from the internal regulations that regulate it, and then they failed to execute in a timely manner the guarantees provided for contracts aimed at recovering the money that was owed ".

In turn, the records collected so far "make it possible to affirm that, on the other hand, the businessmen of the Vicentin firm, in collusion with the officials, requested the irregular loans, required the release of the funds affected as collateral, while simultaneously they postponed the payment of their obligations, with the objective that finally, when the bank authorities wanted to collect the debt, there would be no funds left where Banco Nación could do so. "

Thus, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office defended his request by maintaining that the former authorities of the Bank, "far from ensuring the safeguarding and protection of the bank's assets according to the expectations of a good business administrator, deliberately harmed the entrusted interests in the correct management of public funds for the benefit of the aforementioned firms ".

In the investigated maneuver, for the prosecution the Vicentin Group only sought to "benefit financially at the expense of the National State."

The company is being intervened by the Civil and Commercial justice, which is carrying out the bankruptcy of creditors in Santa Fe. Vicentin was the focus of another march and counter march by President Alberto Fernández, who had announced the expropriation of the cereal company, portraying himself then.