The scandal over the
millionaires negotiated with the insurance companies in the ANSES
, which Clarín uncovered two weeks ago and has already put former president Alberto Fernández, officials he trusts and a group of brokers under judicial scrutiny, is beginning to have its replicas within the country, more precisely in
Concordia
, one of the poorest cities in Argentina.
There they investigate a strange contract with an insurance representative who was appointed "ad honorem", but ended up pocketing more than 20 million pesos in commissions.
As reported by Diario Junio, of that province,
the Public Prosecutor's Office opened an ex officio investigation
into the hiring by the municipality of Concordia for the services of insurance advisor Ignacio Caprarulo, who had already worked as such from 2019 to 2023.
By a provincial law dating from 1971, in Entre Ríos everything state is obliged to contract insurance, of any type, with the Provincial Autárquico Insurance Institute.
That, in turn, is endorsed in a decree from the year 2000, which makes the hiring of a third party inappropriate.
However, the broker Caprarulo - they point out in the investigation - managed to be the first insurance advisor in the municipality of Concordia.
What's more, according to what was published by the same medium, the intermediary commissioned more than 20 million pesos in 2023 alone until the former mayor Enrique Cresto himself, shortly after finishing his term, dispensed with his "ad honorem" services and In the same capacity he appointed a broker from Buenos Aires.
The current management of Mayor Francisco Azcué, of Together for Change, echoed the scandal and clarified that since December 10, 2023, no commission was paid to the operator in question and they reported that they no longer work with that intermediary.
"The Executive Department made itself available to Justice from the beginning and sent all the required documentation to the Prosecutor's Office, which evidently seeks to put a magnifying glass on the hiring carried out in the previous government administration. For all this, I understand that I can categorically deny that this management - which began on December 10, 2023 - is being investigated, we were only asked for collaboration and it has been provided," reported the Undersecretary of Legal and Technical of the Municipality, Ignacio Del Valle.
And he added: "Apparently, for many years the designation of Insurance Advisor was made in an unclear manner and without giving it the due publicity that every administrative act corresponds to, a procedure with which we do not agree and that is why we have decided to make known to society the details of the case".
The news of the investigation transcends, in parallel, the insurance scandal that exploded after the dismissal of Osvaldo Giordano from ANSES, ejected from his position for his partner's vote against the Omnibus Law.
The man from Córdoba had detected million-dollar payments to insurance intermediaries for loans from the pension agency to retirees.
This transfer had occurred after
a decree by Alberto Fernández
that forced all state agencies to contract insurance through Nación Seguros, which in turn operated with the brokers Héctor Martínez Sosa (married to the former president's private secretary) and Pablo Torres García, who charged a much higher commission than the market.
The black box detected by Giordano and publicly revealed to Clarín
was a business worth 20,000 million pesos.
The broker Pablo Torres García (close to Massa), for example, received a commission of 17%, three times higher than the market, which earned him $300 million per month, for acting as a “bridge” between two organizations of the State.
The ANSES credit insurance was the tip of an iceberg that had ramifications in different State organizations and also in provinces, such as Tierra del Fuego, where Martínez Sosa ended up.
Now, a similar mode of operation was recorded in Concordia, which until recently was the poorest city in the country, with 58 percent poor, surpassed in the latest measurements in 2023 by Gran Resistencia, with 60 percent.
Now, in Entre Ríos, prosecutors José Arias and Daniela Montangie seek to reconstruct the steps of the administrative procedures that led to the hiring of Caprarulo, both during the management of Enrique Tomás Cresto and Francisco Azcué.
Cresto, who held a position at the national level during the administration of Alberto Fernández (he was administrator of the National Water and Sanitation Works Entity),
hired the broker through a resolution
, which would not have been published, unlike what the current mayor, who formalized it through a decree in the Official Gazette of the Municipality of Concordia.
Regarding the latter, the current administration clarified that this was done "seeking to give continuity to the acts of government to evaluate the convenience or not of their practicality and necessity", so they resorted to continuing with the advice "ad honorem, that is , absolutely free."
"The IAPSER, in this same logic, also did not pay commissions to said advisor from that date. Therefore, the service has been without any type of cost to the public treasury during the new management.
The decree issued a few weeks ago by the Azcué administration, they noted, "had as its sole objective to prevent municipal personnel from being left without ART or the vehicle fleet and other municipal assets left unprotected, while progress was made in conversations with the Insurance Institute so that the contracting of policies will once again be direct, a fact that happened days ago and, therefore, our relationship with the advisor has been terminated through the issuance of a new decree signed by the Mayor."
Justice is investigating whether Cresto and Azcué ordered the prior intervention of control bodies or some type of legal opinion that endorsed the hiring of the insurance man, whose role was ad honorem, but still charged commissions.
According to reports in Entre Ríos, after the publication in the media of the contract with the broker and the dissemination of the collection of commissions, the Entre Ríos Insurance Institute (IAPSER)
would have revoked the payments.
According to Diario Junio, one version states that the Municipality had decided to reverse the contract, but that has not been officially communicated yet.