MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Vice-president and business partners charged with embezzlement

Boudou is also being investigated into possible influence peddling

Argentine Vice President Amado Boudou, his girlfriend the journalist Agustina Kampfer, his personal friend and business partner José María Nuñez Carmona, and the Belgian citizen and businessman Alejandro Vandenbroele, were charged on Monday of embezzlement by Federal Prosecutor Jorge Di Lello.

Sources indicated that the report was issued by two individuals, whose names did not come into the surface, and it also included a list of ten limited companies to be investigated as well.

News comes as Boudou is being investigated as part of a court probe into possible influence peddling case. The inquiry centres on whether the Argentine Vice president helped printing company Ciccone Calcografica get out of bankruptcy in 2010 and later steered a contract to its new owners to print money.

Boudou has been through a storm of accusations as he is pointed of having allegedly used his influence to avert the bankruptcy of the printing and mint company Ciccone, and subsequently purchasing it through a front-man when he was Economy Minister in 2010.

A 50-million dollars contract to print 100-Argentine peso bills, allegedly at stake, is now the subject of a court investigation.

On a press briefing some weeks ago, Boudou denounced this was “an incredible media operation mounted by “Héctor Magnetto, Clarín’s Media Group CEO, and Judge Daniel Rafecas”.

However Judge Rafecas who was then in charge of the case was then suddenly replaced by Judge Ariel Lijo as the result of a challenge order presented by Núnez Carmona's lawyer Diego Pirota, which was echoed by a Federal Court.