MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Interpol arrest warrant for the cash-filled suitcase man

The suitcase men on the run

Interpol Argentina Office said Wednesday an international arrest warrant has been issued for a Venezuelan-US businessman wanted in Argentina on fraud charges stemming from the seizure of a cash-filled suitcase in a Buenos Aires airport.

The whereabouts of Alejandro Antonini Wilson, who brought 800,000 dollars in undeclared cash into Argentina on a plane chartered by Argentina's state energy company, is unknown. He abandoned the cash after it was discovered by customs officials at a Buenos Aires airport. In a posting on its Web site, Interpol urged anyone who has information regarding Antonini's whereabouts to contact their local police or Interpol's General Secretariat in France. The site said the warrant was issued by Argentina. The case has set off a scandal that is rattling the government of Argentine President Néstor Kirchner at a time when his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is running to replace him as president next October. The seizure has also prompted investigations in Venezuela, where officials in President Hugo Chávez's government are denying allegations of links to Antonini. In Uruguay a Parliament session to consider the Antonini Wilson case, his close links with pro government leaders and businessmen and the fact he traveled to Montevideo after the luggage incident in Buenos Aires, had to be suspended several times because of insults and threats between Deputies. Neither Antonini Wilson nor anyone else on the plane has said where the money came from or what it was for. Venezuelan prosecutors have opened an investigation, and a judge in Argentina ordered Antonini's arrest last week, Argentina's state-run Télam news agency has reported. In the Interpol website Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson is listed 39.581, birth date, 8 April 1961, dual citizenship, Venezuela and US. Antonini has been a US resident for the last 15 years and his family, wife and two daughters, live in Key Biscayne, Miami. The only picture available is from a Uruguayan newspaper when he visited Montevideo in 2006 as an advisor of a Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Governor Jhonny Yañez Rangel who happens to be a son of Venezuela's Vice president. According to the Florida press the Venezuelan community in Key Biscayne is furious with the Antonini Wilson family which had always identified themselves as fierce anti Chavez activists until the scandal of the cash-full suitcase and his close links with the Venezuelan government became public.