Last year, former governor
Sergio Urribarri
received his first conviction for corruption.
They accused him of the crimes of embezzlement and negotiations incompatible with the public function with a sentence of
eight years in prison
.
Economic crime, advertising cartels and millionaire diversion of funds were some of the axes of the harsh allegation with which the prosecution accused the former governor.
This week he added another problem: an accounting expert exposed about US $ 9 million that are "inconsistent with his assets," judicial sources indicated.
And now the main observations in this case for
alleged illicit enrichment
transcend .
The window of time that is investigated and that is obtained in the report that
Clarín
accessed refers to
January 1, 2008 until December 31, 2015
.
Throughout this period, he served as a public official, first as
governor
and later as
a deputy
representing the province of Entre Ríos, always under the umbrella of Peronism/Frente de Todos.
At this stage, the Entre Ríos justice is concentrating on a file for alleged illicit enrichment.
The prosecutor's office in charge of Gonzalo Badano and Patricia Yedro received an accounting expert report made by Romina Stepanic Pouey and Cristián Dumé.
The first thing that was determined is that
Urribarri used third parties "to hide his real heritage,"
sources in the case explained to
Clarín
, and in this way "to be able to manage his funds and assets."
Those who would have acted as
possible front men
for the former Israeli ambassador are
Diego Armando Cardona Herreros
and
Rubén Ángel Martínez
.
Based on the analysis of his assets, financial traceability, and the various reports under investigation, it was determined that Urribarri would have
increased his assets "disproportionately"
, if the income he received as a public official is taken into account.
A fortune of pesos, dollars and euros
The numbers of his fortune, according to official documentation, are the following:
11,546,771.92, 7,245,441.02 dollars and 16,300 euros.
Among the most striking operations for researchers is the
purchase of the Puerto Madero Siete Trust
, ZENCITY complex, ZAFIRO building, for 1,227,000 dollars.
In the Federal Capital, an apartment was also detected
on Cerviño street at 3500
for more than 500,000 dollars.
When the prosecution went into detail year by year, it was observed that in 2009 the purchase of a
Rolex watch
purchased from the firm Zanotti Joyas and billed in the name of Ana Liliana Aguilera stands out.
Two more years, that is, in 2011, a purchase of
Murano glass sculptures
was verified , made in Venice from the firm "Nuova Vernier SRL" for 2,200 euros.
In this case for alleged illicit enrichment,
Urribarri had never been summoned to give an investigative statement
until this expert accounting report was filed.
Based on the same, the prosecution expanded the accusation, that is, the object of investigation and summoned the former governor to provide explanations on June 14.
The
accounting expertise required nearly two years
, and it is not the only test promoted by prosecutors Gadano and Yedro.
A significant number of international letters rogatory were required;
in some cases the response also took years.
How the investigation started
The judicial file began as a result of a complaint in which
a note from a journalistic medium
was attached that made mention of a possible enrichment by Urribarri.
With the case open, and from that first piece of information, various test measures were requested to be able to put together a kind of
X-ray of the fortune
in question.
It was there that the Public Prosecutor's Office found "various patrimonial inconsistencies and a million-dollar fortune," those
close to the cause told
Clarín .
One of the initial hypotheses, which gained strength as a result of various raids carried out in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, as well as on Buenos Aires soil and also in the province that Urribarri governed, was the use of third parties as front men for a patrimony
"
that It is not explained with the income received as public officials”.
During the accounting expertise, the former governor also appointed experts who, according to the investigators, concluded the same as the official professionals:
close to nine million dollars cannot be explained.
In addition to the expert evidence, the prosecution has other evidence that allows them to maintain "that
the amount of the enrichment is greater than that determined in the expertise,
an amount that is the total, adding the expertise and the rest of the evidence."
There is another track that is not far from the radar of anti-corruption prosecutors, there is another crime that is considered close to illicit enrichment, and that is
money laundering
.
It is not ruled out that Urribarri also ends up being investigated for this fact.
Urribarri rejects the expertise
When asked by
Clarín
from the Urribarri environment, they rejected the accounting expertise: "This expert was a government employee and was fired for inefficiency (...) It is a partial version of the expertise of the accountant from the Stepanic Prosecutor's Office and the expert from Part of Urribarri
show significantly lower numbers
than those that the Prosecutor's Office is disclosing. And they will be even more balanced with the report from Greece, since Urribarri's son played soccer in a first-class club and had income in dollars."
In this way,
they rejected any possible enrichment and inconsistencies in the former official's assets
.
It is a report, they concluded, "biased, fallacious, incomplete and without contrasting its analysis and conclusions with reliable and truthful documentation and/or information, made by this accountant who is not objective with respect to Urribarri, with the expert report of the officially appointed experts. , which still remains to be completed".
The biggest challenge during these years of investigation and expert analysis of the former ambassador's fortune was to identify these estates where "there are no "blank" records of operations, and with intermediaries to hide the assets."
Accrediting each operation that is attributed to the official was one of the central tasks because it required the traceability of funds that were not legally entered into the financial market.
To date there are
seven cases for alleged acts of corruption
in which Urribarri is accused.
More than a year ago, prosecutor Cecilia Goyeneche, who was in charge of the anti-corruption prosecutor's office and was responsible for the accusation that led the former governor to her first conviction last year, was dismissed.
Urribarri's "handbook" continues.
There is a case with a request for an oral trial that, according to judicial sources explained to
Clarín
, “has been stopped for more than a year with defense resources.
If everything goes as stipulated, this year it could be sent, and soon the debate will take place”.
This is a case for
alleged million-dollar bribes
in the contracting of software for the Province of Entre Ríos.
The details provided by sources in the case refer to the accusation of the act: the owner of the contractor company is the same person who appears in the enrichment act as his possible figurehead.
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