Judge Lijo ordered a formal request to Switzerland regarding US$190,000 transfers from FIFA to Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia

Federal judge Ariel Lijo ordered a battery of measures to reconstruct the assets of Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia. The measures include a letter rogatory to Switzerland so that FIFA explains why it transferred nearly 190,000 dollars to him, a request to the AFA to report who authorized the credit cards in his name, and the lifting of the tax, banking and stock market secrecy of his ex-wife, Paola Moyano, daughter of the truckers' union leader Hugo Moyano. Casanello and Ariel Lijo. POLITICS Swearing-in of judges Pablo Yadarola and Pablo Bertuzzi at Comodoro Py. September 3, 2026 Ricardo PristuplukThe ruling, signed this Friday, responds to a request from prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita in the case in which Tapia is being investigated for alleged illicit enrichment. The judge put in writing that the information will serve to learn "in a more complete way" about the assets of the union leader, "whose increase is the subject of the investigation." One of the most striking measures is the international letter rogatory to the Swiss Confederation so that FIFA, headquartered in Zurich, reports the concept and reason for three transfers it made in favor of Tapia: US$49,585 in December 2018, US$124,583 in June 2019 and US$15,408 in March 2020. The first two were credited to a dollar savings account at Banco Credicoop and the third was settled in pesos in another account at the same bank. In total they add up to about US$189,577. Claudio Tapia and Paola MoyanoLijo also asked FIFA for the details of all payments, fees, per diems and travel expenses it paid to Tapia since 2016, along with the positions or commissions that justified them and the destination accounts. From the AFA, the judge demanded the minutes, resolutions or internal rules that authorized the issuance in Tapia's name of additional Visa and Cabal cards from the association's accounts, as well as American Express Corporate cards. He asked for the limits, the usage policy and the expense reports with receipts. Lijo also wants to know whether the AFA charged those expenses as remuneration, payment in kind or an advance at Tapia's expense. And he asked that it explain the concept of five transfers to his Credicoop accounts between 2020 and 2023 —the largest, of $1,251,000, in April 2023— and how the 30 million pesos in travel expenses that Tapia declared having received from the entity were settled.4-22-2026 PROSECUTOR GERARDO POLLICITA PHOTO BY ENRIQUE GARCIA MEDINAENRIQUE GARCIA MEDINAThe judge ordered the Truck Drivers' Union to report the concept of 37 deposits totaling $1,494,678 that it made between January 2016 and January 2019 into a salary account of Tapia's at Banco Provincia. He asked for his personnel file, the positions he held in the union, his pay slips and the dates of his hiring and departure. The ruling lifts the tax, stock market, banking secrecy and the secrecy protecting information from the Financial Information Unit with respect to Paola Moyano, Tapia's ex-wife and daughter of Hugo Moyano. He asked ARCA to "comprehensively" reconstruct her tax and asset situation: income and personal property tax returns, assets in the country and abroad, debts and loans, billing, corporate shareholdings, rentals, accounts in virtual wallets and crypto assets, and international exchange information on accounts abroad. She must also report whether she had links with taxpayers in the APOC database, that is, issuers of apocryphal invoices, and whether she declared income or outflows of money through Customs. Lijo further asked that the Central Bank circularize all financial institutions to detect accounts, safe deposit boxes, cards and transfers abroad in Moyano's name, and that Caja de Valores and Coelsa report her custodian accounts and transfers. In another point, the judge asked ARCA to report whether Tapia and Moyano joined the asset regularization regime or the special Personal Property regime of law 27,743, the 2024 money laundering amnesty, and if so, what assets, currencies and securities they declared and what payments they made. Lijo ordered the Motor Vehicle Registry to report in which vehicles Tapia appeared as "authorized" since 2016 and to send the files on four cars in his name, including a BMW X4 purchased in June 2020. He asked Credicoop and Banco de Servicios y Transacciones for all movements of two custodian accounts of Tapia's, opened in 2017 and 2021, and the accounts from which the money came in and went out. The banks Nación, Ciudad, Coinag and Galicia have 72 hours to report any product that Tapia has or has had in any capacity. The judge gave the Buenos Aires city government's Office of Public Integrity 72 hours to say where and how Tapia's sworn declarations from 2016 to 2022 are kept, with their reserved annexes, and who is in charge of that documentation. He asked Ceamse whether Tapia's employment records from March and December 2006 have appeared. He also asked the Buenos Aires City and Buenos Aires Province notaries' associations to report whether Marisa Galarza works as a notary and which registry she is in charge of. Lijo asked to certify the status of seven case files in which Tapia or the AFA appear (in economic criminal courts 2, 5, 7 and 8, in two criminal and correctional courts and in the federal court of Campana) and that they send him copies of everything related to his assets since 2016. Several of those cases were driven by the businessman Guillermo Tofoni. Finally, the judge reiterated the information requests he had made on September 16 and 17 to the CNV, the UIF, the IGJ, the INAES and the Buenos Aires Province Real Estate Registry, to 16 crypto asset platforms (including Binance, OKX and Ualá) and to remittance companies such as Banco Piano and local Western Union, which have not yet responded. The investigation was driven by prosecutor Pollicita based on a complaint by Tofoni, and it landed in Lijo's hands after the Buenos Aires Federal Chamber resolved a jurisdictional conflict between different courts. It is Tapia's position at Ceamse, and not the presidency of the AFA, that allows him to be investigated for illicit enrichment, a crime that can only be committed by public officials. By Hernán CappielloType of work:Original News