Lucia Salinas
02/25/2021 12:11
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 02/25/2021 12:15 PM
Lázaro Báez is no longer a millionaire.
It was from 2003 to 2015 and then the decline of his empire was permanent: he went from having 1,412 assets appraised for about 205 million dollars to having his assets seized by judicial investigations.
Last year, in the middle of the trial for the
Route of Money K
- in which Báez was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in prison - his ex-wife Norma Calismonte began to find out with his lawyers how much Báez's real estate amounted to start the division of goods.
But the harsh sentence against the owner of the Austral Group, the millionaire fines applied by the magistrates begin to frustrate any possibility of claiming something.
Despite the embargoes,
there was a group of properties that were still active.
That is why Calismonte had asked his lawyers Roberto Herrera and Alejandro Baldini, to advance on the assets of the businessman that they were exploiting for rent.
I wanted to know where that money was going.
The suspicion of the ex-wife of businessman K is that there is an important circulation of money that the Báez family does not perceive and that people outside the inner circle manage it through the rental of cabins and apartments.
Norma Calismonte, the ex-wife of Lázaro Báez, was seeking to claim 50% of the assets.
Photo Clarín.
Although he made judicial summons, there were no answers.
The purpose of the measure was to be able to determine the circulating of funds outside the judicial accounts, since since 2016 all of Lázaro Báez's assets have been seized and with judicial administrators.
The sending of summons was not a surprise for Báez.
One of these document letters was sent to the family of his current girlfriend,
who would be in charge of marketing a set of cabins in Santa Cruz.
"I hope that now he sees who is stealing from him," Calismonte had let his environment transcend, when businessman K, accompanied by his new partner, left the Ezeiza Prison and went to a reserved address to carry out house arrest.
Lázaro Báez and his four children Luciana Martín Leandro and Melina are sitting on the dock.
T
Calismonte, her lawyers say, was seeking the division of assets, "not to have something for herself, but to protect the assets that correspond to her children."
But those plans were frustrated this Wednesday at 2.30pm when the Federal Oral Court 4 (TOF 4) concluded the reading of the verdict on the Route of Money K. His four children ended up convicted: the two boys with the highest penalties regarding the accusation. awarded, Martín (9 years) and Leandro (5 years), and Luciana and Melina received a suspended sentence of 3 years each.
But in addition, all of them will have to face
millionaire fines valued in dollars
and in proportion to the funds that were laundered.
The children of Lázaro Báez.
Luciana Martín Leandro and Melina are sitting in the dock.
The decision that has direct implications in the frustrated plan to advance in a division of goods, was the fine on businessman K: eight times the sum of money devoted to illicit operations, that is, he must pay 480 million dollars
But there was more: Austral Construcciones, the flagship firm of Lázaro Báez, was also fined and will
have to pay 120 million dollars.
It was the cornerstone of the investigated maneuvers and in its name there are more than 900 registered assets.
In parallel, the construction company whose sole client was the State during the Kirchner decade is in the process of bankruptcy.
As Clarín said, Judge María José Gigy Traynor has already finished off several assets: apartments, garages and buildings mostly.
That money goes to the judicial account that will later be distributed among the creditors.
In addition, he has already set a date to finish emblematic rooms of Báez.
That is, between the fines applied to Báez, the construction company that concentrated a large part of the assets, and the auction process in bankruptcy, the possibility of carrying out a division of assets remained as a distant plan in time: everything was confiscated and the four heirs of what was a large fortune, condemned.
