Two government agencies also asked that Cristina Kirchner be dismissed in the K Money Route

The government through two agencies, the AFIP and the Financial Information Unit (UIF) validated that Cristina Kirchner be dismissed in the case known as the K Money Route. It was after the surprise request of prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan before Judge Sebastián Casanello. In the short term, as Clarín learned, the magistrate will dismiss the vice president who is accused of money laundering in this file.

Without objections to the criteria established by the Public Prosecutor's Office, the two plaintiff agencies supported that the vice president be dismissed in the case where Lázaro Báez, her former business partner, was sentenced to ten years in prison for having laundered 55 million dollars with Austral Construcciones.

The FIU and the AFIP, both government agencies, are headed by K officials. The first is commanded by Juan Carlos Otero, the second Carlos Castagneto.

This residual section of the K Money Route focused on the link between Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez, "to determine and establish their possible co-authorship or participation in that concrete and punctual money laundering maneuver," Marijuan explained in his opinion.

With the analysis of the case, said the prosecutor, "I have no doubt whatsoever about the close and direct personal relationship between" the vice president and the owner of Grupo Austral. However, the evidence gathered was not sufficient to sustain the accusation: a direct intervention, an order, to Báez to carry out the laundering operations.

After five years, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office, after an extensive enumeration of arguments under which he claimed not to have been able to prove Cristina's participation in "this concrete and punctual money laundering maneuver," requested that the vice president be dismissed.

Faced with the opinion of the prosecution, Judge Sebastián Casanello requested the opinion of the complaints represented by the UIF and the AFIP who considered that there are not enough elements to sustain the accusation that involved Cristina Kirchner in the laundering maneuvers.

The two organizations during the trial against Lázaro Báez, his four children, the suitcase Leonardo Fariña, the accountant Daniel Pérez Gadín, the lawyer Jorge Chueco, among others, requested high sentences against the accused: the UIF requested nine years for businessman K and eight years for the AFIP. These allegations were heard in 2020 under the current management.

However, in this section of the file, they agreed with the prosecutor Marijuan and asked for the dismissal of Cristina Kirchner.

"Close links"

The K Money Route has as its central element Austral Construcciones, awarded 86% of the road contracts tendered in Santa Cruz, which according to the conviction in which the trial against Cristina Kirchner for the Vialidad case derived, were plagued by irregularities: direction of the tenders, lack of controls, unfinished works, average price overruns of 65%, exclusive circuits to receive funds for works that did not advance, among others.

It is precisely a portion of those irregular funds that, according to the Court that convicted Lázaro Báez in the K Money Route, were turned over to laundering operations.

The window of time that was investigated was 2010-2013 period in which, through the construction company that had as its only client the National State, laundered 55 million dollars It happens that simultaneously, he celebrated several commercial businesses with the former President: 18 purchase and sale of properties and land, the administration and operation of hotels, rental contracts, a land in condominium, hiring of rooms of the tourist complexes, construction of real estate. These are just some of the businesses that unite them. In addition, Báez and his entourage made multiple visits to the presidential residence of Olivos at that time.

In this regard, prosecutor Marijuan now indicated that both Báez and the vice president were "convicted of illicit activities that have held them responsible for the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration."

In his opinion, now validated by the AFIP and the UIF, the multiple commercial businesses that link Cristina Kirchner with Báez were specified, which show "the endearing closeness, bond and friendship" between the two, says the prosecutor.

In the development of the analysis of this link, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office said: "And if the above is not enough to understand it, we have that the recent evidence incorporated into this case regarding the study of the cross-referencing of calls between telephones of Lázaro Báez and Cristina Elisabet Fernández and / or their secretaries and collaborators, show that the former had at least 372 telephone contacts over a period of just over two years."

But none of this was enough to determine the direct intervention of the vice president in the laundering structure.

As Clarín said, despite this request for dismissal that will be finalized by the court in the coming days, Cristina Kirchner will continue to be investigated for money laundering along with Báez in another case where the large patrimony of the owner of Grupo Austral is investigated.

Between 2010 and 2013 Lázaro Báez (same period of the laundering maneuvers), had declared before the AFIP a patrimony of 66 million pesos, however the justice determined that his fortune was even greater: in 2016, the federal justice detected 1,420 movable and immovable assets, equivalent then to 205 million dollars. In this stretch in which the vice president will continue to be investigated, it seeks to determine if those properties were acquired in a personal capacity or acting as a front man for the Kirchners.