Hotesur - Los Sauces: the banking irregularities and alleged money laundering behind the purchase of the apartment where Cristina Kirchner is serving her sentence

After so many years, the expert report has yellowed, but it remains relevant. It shows that the banking transaction through which the Kirchner family's company Los Sauces SA carried out the purchase of the apartment at San José 1111 in the city of Buenos Aires — where former president Cristina Fernández is serving her sentence — accumulated multiple irregularities, omissions, and inconsistencies, which set off alarms in the courts and within Banco Nación. The expert report dates from October 2020. It focused on how, on May 6, 2015, 4 million pesos — about US$450,000 at the then-current exchange rate — were withdrawn from a savings account belonging to the then head of state and her children Máximo and Florencia Kirchner, and immediately deposited into an account of Los Sauces SA. That journey accumulated multiple shortcomings. Among others, the transaction lacks the signature of the depositor, the involvement of the Banco Nación teller, or the bank's higher authorizing instances; it also lacked supporting documentation and proceeded without detailing the origin of the funds. But that is not all: both transactions were carried out without the presence of the account holders or a proxy, and without a written request from them, according to the internal summary initiated within BNA after kirchnerismo left the Casa Rosada and Juntos por el Cambio came to power. The expert report, which has been in the federal courts of Comodoro Py for years, delved into the conclusions found in the so-called "Final Report of the Instructor," which within Banco Nación focused on how the actual procedure adopted within the bank unfolded in the purchase of unit 5, second floor, of San José 1111. The instructors' objections were numerous. Regarding the deposit, for example, they noted that it lacked the involvement of the then teller, identified as Lisandro Gauna. And in the section on charges against the personnel involved, they added that the cash vouchers bore neither the signature of the account holders nor of whoever authorized them, and that the origin of the funds was not documented. The sequence of May 6 The authorization of the withdrawal was recorded at 14:02:52 on that Wednesday, May 6, 2015. The ticket for the deposit into the Los Sauces SA account shows the time 14:04:33, and the withdrawal, 14:04:37, four seconds later. The deposit slip listed Cristina Fernández as the depositor, as if the then President had appeared in person at the branch in Río Gallegos. But the slip has a gap: it does not bear her handwritten signature. Neither does the withdrawal slip. Official documents show that the then President could not have been in Río Gallegos that day. Why? Because that day she was at the Casa Rosada. At 7 p.m. she received Zhao Leji, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and that country's ambassador, among other members of the delegation, according to the Audience Registry. The meeting was photographed and had other witnesses, such as Axel Kicillof and Eduardo "Wado" De Pedro. That same day, however, 3,959,000 pesos were indeed debited from the Los Sauces SA account under the concept "service check." But there the instructors of the internal summary detected another irregularity. Which one? They verified that the check never physically existed and that the Río Gallegos branch did not keep a receipt of the transaction. In fact, according to the summary writers' reconstruction, the debit was made at the last minute, based on an email that someone from the management of the Plaza de Mayo branch sent at 16:23, requesting the deposit of 3,959,000 pesos into the checking account of a company identified as Pilisar SA, which recorded the credit for that amount on that same date. According to the summary, the purpose was the purchase of "Income Diversion Certificates" (Cedines) — that is, public securities issued by kirchnerismo between 2009 and 2011, which in those years of currency controls allowed companies and individuals to liquidate foreign currency abroad in exchange for a peso-denominated bond, as a mechanism for accessing the parallel dollar or "paper dollar." Who is behind Pilisar SA? It is an Argentine company in the home appliances sector, incorporated in 2005 and linked to the Newsan Group controlled by businessman Rubén Cherñajovsky. It operates mainly in the manufacture and sale of refrigerators, washing machines, and other "white line" appliances, under brands such as Siam, Atma, Philco, and Coventry. The link to the property But the questions do not end there. Where did the Cedines worth US$370,000 for the real estate transaction come from? They were transferred to Los Sauces SA by someone who identified himself as Emilio Mazzola, at the time a partner and director of Pilisar SA, whose relationship with Cherñajovsky would face turbulent moments that led to mutual accusations ending up in federal court. In 2020, Mazzola accused Cherñajovsky of forcing him into a compulsory sale of Pilisar SA shares and reported the gutting of the company of at least US$35 million between 2012 and 2015, the last three years of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government. And Cherñajovsky was not far behind: he accused Mazzola of having stolen 1,000 refrigerators. But that exchange of accusations and complaints came later. In 2015, Mazzola collaborated in the purchase of San José 1111 with Cedines. And Los Sauces SA used those certificates to pay for the apartment to Jorge Edmundo Coscia, according to deed 168 of June 11, 2015. For tax purposes, the public deed set the price at 3,344,800 pesos, calculated at 9.04 pesos per dollar. To give it an appearance of formality, board minutes 24 of Los Sauces SA, dated May 5 of that year, the certification by accountant Víctor Manzanares, and the sworn statement before the UIF signed by the company's president, Romina Mercado, then a Santa Cruz prosecutor and daughter of Alicia Kirchner, described the 4-million-peso inflow as an irrevocable contribution from the Estate of Néstor Kirchner, made through a bank credit. But there too the summary writers detected inconsistencies and omissions: the statements reflected a card withdrawal and a cash deposit. That was not all. The financial statements of Los Sauces SA as of December 31, 2015 also did not record that contribution in net equity, which remained at 2,234,400 pesos. Instead, an increase of 6,427,106.97 pesos appeared in "partners' individual accounts," an amount that matched the credits that the shareholders — on behalf of the then President and her children — declared in the Personal Assets tax. Conflicting views The defense's experts, it should be noted, maintained that the transaction was legal. They emphasized that on May 6, 2015 there were sufficient funds in the Los Sauces SA checking account. They relied on the BNA instructor's own report and on the credit recorded in the Pilisar SA account, although they admitted that the transactions could not be identified in the accounting. More critical were the experts of the Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF). They pointed out that the absence of the General Ledger after December 31, 2014 prevented them from tracing the origin of the funds through the accounts and that some transactions may have been made in cash. They inferred that the money came from contributions by the partners, although they clarified that their analysis was limited to the immediate source. The expert report on how the San José 1111 apartment entered the Kirchners' assets was carried out, it should be clarified, in October 2020, when Argentines were dealing with the quarantine imposed by then president Alberto Fernández, who came to power with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as his running mate, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In June 2022, while vice president, Fernández de Kirchner cited Newsan as a virtuous example in calling for more intervention and regulation of imports, in defense of local industry. But she remained silent about the role that Cherñajovsky's conglomerate had previously played in the purchase of her apartment. Three years after that praise, the former president began serving there her house arrest in the "Vialidad case." But the purchase of the apartment at San José 1111 also produced other consequences at the anti-money-laundering unit (UIF), which issued a report, in the courts, and within Banco Nación. In Comodoro Py, then federal judge Claudio Bonadío went so far as to question and charge four employees of the bank. When consulted by LA NACION, meanwhile, the Banco Nación confirmed that the entity "duly processed summary proceedings originating from observations made by the Institution's Audit regarding certain banking transactions recorded at the Río Gallegos Branch," focused on "the manner in which certain transactions were executed and documented." In that regard, the auditors verified "deviation from the internal procedures in force regarding the execution, documentation, and control of banking transactions," for which the Bank recorded "warnings" and "calls for attention" in the employees' files, while the then branch manager, Rolando D'Avena, had already been dismissed for another cause. "Had he continued working at the Bank," the entity indicated, "he would have been subject to a severe disciplinary measure." Now, two Kirchner family companies, Hotesur and Los Sauces, are the focus of the accusation of alleged money laundering from corruption in the oral trial that began this Friday. Five Banco Nación employees who handled that transaction in Río Gallegos — D'Avena, Marcelo Mazú, Raúl Avarese, Lisandro Gauna, and Mónica Liliana Romero — are among the accused. By Hugo Alconada Mon, Ignacio Grimaldi Type of work: Original news article