K money trail

Argentine presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

The road of the money K (Spanish: La ruta del dinero K, "K" stands for "Kirchnerism) is a 2013 political scandal in Argentina. It began with an investigation of the TV programm Periodismo para todos, led by journalist Jorge Lanata, who described a case of embezzlement involving the former president Néstor Kirchner, the current president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the engineer Lázaro Báez, who worked for them. According to the investigation, Báez channeled money destined to public infrastructure to tax havens. The scandal led to a judiciary investigation.

Development

Periodismo para todos began its 2013 season on April 14. Jorge Lanata pointed that, according to his annual oath to the AFIP, Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had a private wealth of US$ 1,4 million in 2003, when Néstor Kirchner became president of Argentina. When he died in 2010, their private wealth was US$ 14,1 million. Lanata said that, besides that, there was a large ammount of undeclared money as well. The first programm included interviews with Leonardo Fariña and Federico Elaskar, who detailed the methodology used by Lázaro Báez to send 55 millions of Euros to tax havens. Lázaro Báez was a businessman from the Santa Cruz Province, and a close friend of Néstor Kirchner. Leonardo Fariña works for Báez, and Federico Elascar led SGI, a financial firm that was used for money laundering. Elaskar pointed the existence of more than 50 financial firms used for similar transactions. Fabián Rossi, husband of the actress Iliana Calabró, was accused of managing the financial operations in Panama.

Both Fariña and Elaskar denied the things they have said, after the programm was aired. Lanata showed renewed evidences the following programms, that confirmed their initial declarations. The prosecutor Guillermo Marijuán began to investigate Lázaro Baez for the issues mentioned in the programm. Lanata aired an interview with Miriam Quiroga, secretary of Néstor Kirchner. Quiroga described people moving full bags of money from the Casa Rosada and the Quinta de Olivos to El Calafate, the home town of Kirchner, using the Tango 01 presidential airforce. Quiroga confirmed as well that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was aware of those operations, and although she could not confirm the existence of a vault at the Kirchner's house, she had heard things that made her suspect that it was very likely. The former prosecutor Andrés Vivanco pointed that Báez's wealth is actually the wealth of Néstor Kirchner, and mentioned two other vaults in Río Gallegos, one belonging to Cristina Kirchner, the other to Báez.

On May 19 Lanata made further accusations of money laundering to Néstor Kirchner, his son Máximo Kirchner, Lázaro Báez and the sport agent Miguel Ángel Pires. This operation would be done through the brought of soccer players for Racing Club de Avellaneda, such as Rubén Ramírez, Pablo Lugüercio, Marcos Cáceres, Nicolás Cabrera, Leandro González and Martín Wagner.

Government reactions

The national deputee Andrés Larroque considered the scandal a veiled coup attempt by the media. Writer Ricardo Forster minimized the significance of political corruption, and considered the interest of the press in it a threat to democracy.

The government sought to reduce the audience of Periodismo para todos by rescheduling the soccer matches, so that the most important match of the week is aired at the same time. The operation was unsuccessful, as Lanata got 24,7 rating points against 16 for the Boca-Newell's match.