The Buenos Aires legislature was on the verge of being raided by the Justice in the case of the corruption cards, which investigates a network of political leaders and legislative contracts that was uncovered after the arrest of Julio "Chocolate" Rigau on September 9, with 48 plastics in his possession and 2.2 million pesos in a consortium bag.
This unprecedented conflict of provincial powers is close to detonating due to the refusal of the authorities of the provincial Chamber of Deputies to respond to a letter from the Justice, in which the prosecutor Betina Lacki requested to know who are the officials and employers of a key area of the legislature.
According to the newspaper La Nación, on the eve of the judicial fair, the Chamber of Deputies of Buenos Aires sent a response to the Justice but it was evasive. He argued that the prosecutor's request could go against the law on the protection of personal dataand that it would be the legislature itself that would decide if and when to give it those names.
"In relation to the alleged protection of personal data, it is crystal clear that such an assertion would have no basis because the information requested is not of a sensitive nature relating to racial and ethnic origin, political opinions, religious, philosophical or moral convictions, trade union membership and information relating to health or sexual life," prosecutor Lacki replied.
The prosecutor also took refuge in the fact that "all information in the possession of the State is presumed to be public" therefore the Access to Public Information Law empowers her to request those data that she considers important to investigate the black money and corruption scheme in the legislature. He also recalled that the Legislative Branch is one of the subjects obliged to deliver such data.
Lacki wants to know who has worked or is still working in the areas of the legislature that are in charge of appointing employees, viewing their files and auditing their performance. He needs those names to quote them to explain the appointments of "Chocolate" Rigau and the 48 holders of those debit cards.
Albini, along with Chocolate Rigau, are both imprisoned in the corruption card case.
The prosecutor said that if they do not receive the information voluntarily requested by the Legislature, which is currently presided over by Alejandro Dichiara (Union for the Fatherland), the data will be requested "by means of a jurisdictional order," in other words a search.
Former Massista councilman Facundo Albini and his father, Claudio, former deputy chief of staff of the provincial Chamber of Deputies, are in prison because they are suspected of being part of an illicit association dedicated to defrauding the state that also included Julio "Chocolate" Rigau.
Judge Guillermo Federico Atencio, who is overseeing the investigation, has an estimate of the possible theft of money from the Buenos Aires public coffers: he says that it could exceed $800 million a year and estimated that "with the future of the investigation, an act of corruption of immeasurable importance will be detected."
The progress of Betina Lagui's investigation managed to identify another 39 people who gave up their debit cards so that a couple of "Chocolates", in allusion to the corruption maneuver that culminated in the arrest of Julio "Chocolate" Rigau, withdraw their monthly salaries as alleged employees of the Buenos Aires Senate.
The prosecutor's discovery came from a report given to her by Banco Provincia, based on the security cameras of its ATMs, where a couple could be seen repeatedly greeting each other in the early hours of the morning with "Chocolate" Rigau, while they performed the same task as the Peronist leader. which consisted of withdrawing money from numerous bank accounts of employees of the provincial legislature.