Money Route K: The Federal Chamber dismissed an official accused of participating in the purchase of a field in Baez

Antonio Demarco was until now one of the three defendants still being investigated by Lazaro Baez's business. Specifically, he was accused of being one of the intermediaries in the purchase of the “El Entrevero” field, in Uruguay, a case that has already been brought to trial. After a long legal battle, the Federal Chamber has just dismissed it on the grounds that there is no evidence against it.

For that 152-hectare field, located between José Ignacio and La Barra, 14 million dollars were paid. Several companies and front men from Baez participated in the operation to try to hide the real owners.

The repentant Leonardo Fariña said that the Uruguayan society Traline SA was used (Maximiliano Acosta was the president and then a general mandate was granted to Maximiliano Goff Davila). When the relationship with the Baez environment had already broken, the camp was left in the name of another company named Jumey SA, chaired by Daniel Pérez Gadín.

For that operation, in April 2020, Judge Sebastián Casanello sent Baez, Jorge Chueco, Pérez Gadín, Fariña, Maximiliano Acosta, Maximiliano Goff Davila, financier Santiago Carradori and Osvaldo Guthux to oral trial.

When it was his turn to intervene, the Federal Chamber confirmed all the prosecutions, but decreed the lack of merit for Demarco. “Although the appointee intervened in inquiries about possible real estate developments and in the signing of an undertaking to buy and sell for the acquisition of the stay, it is not proven — even with the degree of certainty required at this stage — that the appointee could have suspected the spurious origin of the funds. His intervention was reduced only to looking for possible investments in Uruguay because he had resided there and knew people in the area, and to signing a commitment to buy and sell, all at the request of the then husband of his sister-in-law, without even claiming to collect fees for its management, his only expectation being the possible acquisition of a lot of real estate development,” the tribunal held in 2020.

Demarco remained under investigation. In fact, in September last year, the House ordered the judge a definition of the procedural status of the three persons who lacked merit: Cristina Kirchner, Juan Pedro Damiani Sobrero (the former president of Peñarol of Uruguay), and Antonio Demarco.

The defense of Demarco - a former Buenos Aires city official who is currently serving in the Matanza Riachuelo Basin Authority (ACUMAR) - continued his appeals and eventually won the dismissal this week.

Chamber II took into account the lack of evidence against Demarco and the passage of time since the beginning of the investigation. “Ten years after the investigation into the event began and three years after De Marco was passively legitimized, the subsistence — to rule out the avenue of the exception — of controversial events subject to the production of evidence cannot be validly sustained,” Judge Eduardo Farah said in his vote.

Meanwhile, Mariano Llorens also voted in favour of the dismissal: “The FIU and the AFIP, in their role as private accusers, have not proposed any new evidentiary measures, without prejudice to which, they have affirmed their interest in the continuation of the proceedings and, especially the last of the organizations appointed, emphasized the role of the judge in to resolve the order imposed by this House. Given the above, the time that has elapsed and what Mr. Prosecutor has said, I have no alternative but to confirm what I said in the resolution of February 19, 2020: there is not enough evidence to allow me to affirm - even with the degree of certainty required by this stage - the subjective aspect of the crime for which it was timely intended to prosecute Demarco”.

The “k money route” is the only cause in which Cristina Kirchner was called to testify and did not end up being prosecuted. This was highlighted by herself in several of her last court appearances, when she complained about “lawfare” and that all her cases fell into the hands of judges Claudio Bonadio and Julián Ercolini.

At the trial, Lazaro Baez was sentenced at the end of February to 12 years in prison. His four children, former accountant Daniel Pérez Gadín, lawyer Jorge Chueco, Fabian Rossi, among others, also received convictions. After the appeals, the definition now remained in the hands of Chamber IV of the Chamber of Cassation.

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