Argentine President Mauricio Macri and top protégé, Néstor Grindetti, charged in Panamá Papers case.

[forest444]

Argentine Prosecutor Martín Niklison has filed charges against President Mauricio Macri and a top political protégé, Lanús Mayor Néstor Grindetti, over allegations of hiding offshore companies when they were both officials in the Buenos Aires municipal government. The charges are based on proof that emerged recently as part of the international Panamá Papers scandal.

Prosecutor Estela Andrades presented a separate motion to Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello that this probe be unified with the already existing investigation into President Macri's participation in the Mossack Fonseca offshore shell company scheme. Between the Panamá Papers and Open Corporate leaks, Macri's name has been found in at least nine such accounts.

Lanús Mayor Néstor Grindetti, a former municipal finance minister during Macri's tenure as mayor, was listed on Interpol records as “wanted by the judicial authorities of Brazil for prosecution” for alleged “crimes against the tax authorities and consumer relations.” Grindetti's spokesman dismissed the charges, sending journalists an excerpt of a ruling issued on April 21 that cleared him from all charges related to a case titled “Pablo Tomás Boero and others.”

The Boero ruling, however, confirmed that Grindetti had an international arrest order issued by a court in Curitiba, Brazil, and that the order was active from December 14, 2012, until March 30, 2016. Carlos Gonella, head of the PROCELAC money laundering prosecutor's office, petitioned Judge Casanello to open a probe against Grindetti for “malicious omission of data.”

According to the documents released to the ICIJ, the Mossack Fonseca law firm helped Grindetti establish a shell company known as Mercier International in July 2010. Two weeks later, he opened an account at the Switzerland-based bank Clariden Leu AG. This bank is connected to Credit Suisse, which received a commission in the sale of Tango 8 municipal bonds issued by the city that year.

Opposition Buenos Aires City legislators have called for an investigation into whether Grindetti used his offshore accounts to receive kickbacks from the issue of Tango 8 bonds, and whether they were also used to finance Macri's right-wing PRO party.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/213250/panam%C3%A1-papers-another-accusation-against-macri-and-grindetti

[Judi Lynn]

1. How could this be? Macri?

If only no one will come to their aid, from among their fellow fascists. It should become "every fascist for him/herself," really.

These guys went all out, didn't they?

Thank you, forest444.

[center]

Will be waiting outside for Macri, to take him to Singer's house.

("Judge" Griese portrait, borrowed from forest444.) [/center]

[forest444]

3. Mr. Law-and-Order is in dire straits, now that we know who his bag man in the offshore scheme was.

Last edited Mon Apr 25, 2016, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)

It's a real problem because this guy (Clusellas) is now Legal and Technical Secretary to the President - one of the most influential and high-profile posts in Argentine government.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110849632

My guess is that he'll sing like a canary ("Macri's other singer"?).

[Judi Lynn]

4. Even more interesting. One would hope sooner or later someone's going to move to save himself.

Last edited Tue Apr 26, 2016, 06:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for posting the link to your article. I had missed it.

[2naSalit]

2. Wonder how much he

paid/was paid to get himself (s)elected and whose money it was.

[forest444]

5. Ah, the 3 million peso question.

We know his presidential campaign received at least 3 million pesos ($350,000 at the time) from one of the top municipal contractors during his tenure as mayor - which is explicitly illegal in Argentina (the case is currently bogged down in the courts).

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.diarioregistrado.com/politica/denuncian-que-macri-recibio-plata-de-contratistas-del-estado-para-su-campana_a570a7c34c7b2221d21b0ea5e&prev=search

Macri, of course, was the favorite of large campaign contributors in general, and was known to reap as much as 120 million pesos ($14 million at the time) in a single black tie dinner.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lanacion.com.ar%2F1777074-macri-recaudo-en-una-cena-120-millones

All these subsequent revelations do indeed suggest that his campaign may have received - even solicited - large (illegal) donations from foreign sources. Whether this includes busy bodies in the CIA, right-wingers in Brazil, narcos in Colombia, or other miscreants like Singer, we'll probably never know.

But even if that had been in fact the case, I still believe that what gave him the critical edge in what was, after all, a narrow victory, was aggressive support from Argentine big media. The Fox News/Limbaugh effect is, unfortunately, quite real, and tends to work best in countries where you have white majorities feeling anxious about the "browning" of the country they live in.

That was probably worth more to his campaign than any millions his friends might have thrown at him.

[Judi Lynn]

7. They completely white-washed the entire Dirty War, impossible to forgive. n/t

[bemildred]

6. I told you he was a dumb ass.

He appears to be unlucky too.

[forest444]

8. You were right. It seems that he needed the image coach more than his wife did.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110849595

Then again, he already has his CIA-issued image man (such as he is).

[center]

Jaime Durán Barba. Ugly on the outside, and even worse on the inside.[/center]