Argentine president Mauricio Macri linked the poor state of the country's infrastructure to the so called “K corruption notebooks”, but also praised that truth is coming to light and in just two years Argentina's standing in the Transparency rating had gone from position 54 to 17.
The Argentine government will allow companies whose officials are named in a corruption probe to continue work on existing projects and to bid for new ones. Contracts will be honored and companies won’t be punished for what employees may have done, Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich said in an interview in Buenos Aires.
Argentine prosecutors questioned a construction executive related to President Mauricio Macri on Monday as part of a sprawling investigation into bribe payments made to the former government. Angelo Calcaterra, the former head of construction company Iecsa and Macri’s cousin, told prosecutors he was told by officials in former President Cristina Fernandez’ administration to pay cash in exchange for public works contracts.
Argentine Federal judge Claudio Bonadio will present a formal request to Congress to strip ex president and Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of her parliamentary immunity. Bonadio's move against CFK, for which she risks immediate arrest, is part of an investigation into an alleged giant bribery and corruption ring that spanned over a decade of the Kirchner couple's rule and involves high-profile businesspeople, politicians and magistrates.
Buenos Aires province governor Maria Eugenia Vidal said that the union boss arrested in Uruguay is one of “the many Balcedo and Caballos Suarez”, who before were protected, and today are behind bars”.
A member of Argentina's elite of powerful union sharks has been arrested in Uruguay at his Great Chaparral ranch and is awaiting extradition to Buenos Aires to face charges of corruption, money laundering, extortion, stealing funds and links with the drugs business, among others.
The Argentine government is demanding compensations of over 1.2 billion US dollars from ex president Cristina Fernandez, several of her ministers and staff, as well as businessmen benefitted by the Kirchner administrations, for damages caused by acts of corruption.
Argentine president Mauricio Macri said on Monday that the time of messianic leaders who hand to hand with lies denied reality is over, and pointed out that the country is undergoing a deep transformation, not only economic, but equally significant of values and success will be achieved if all Argentines understand this and put it into practice.
Discouraging week for the Kirchner family and followers, despite the fact that he name of their main political enemy, Mauricio Macri, has cropped up in the Panama Papers. Not only Lazaro Baez, the dominant public works contractor in Santa Cruz province, and believed to be a straw man for the Kirchner family has been arrested and faces questioning on a money laundering investigation, but also former Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime implicated the Kirchner couple and a former minister in a multimillion purchase of damaged railway materials.
An Argentine powerful public works contractor from the province of Santa Cruz and close associate of the Kirchner family, Lazaro Baez was arrested on Tuesday afternoon when he arrived in his private Lear Jet to a Buenos Aires airport. Considered one of the wealthiest men in the southern province, political turf of the Kirchner family, and with an 'unrivaled' talent for business, Baez is a main suspect of an investigation into alleged money laundering.