By Charles Newbury
BUENOS AIRES (AA) – The former president of Argentina will be investigated in a second case of alleged corruption since she left office in December, a federal prosecutor said Monday.
Prosecutor Carlos Rivolo said there are grounds for a probe of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner after reviewing a complaint presented April 4 by Margarita Stolbizer, a national congresswoman aligned with the new government of Mauricio Macri.
Rivolo will look into the former president’s Los Sauces real estate business for suspected acts of illicit enrichment and the falsification of public documents, state newswire Telam reported.
Also under the spotlight are the former president’s son Maximo, who is now a national congressman and, Lazaro Baez, a close associate of the Kirchners who is under arrest for alleged money laundering after accumulating a fortune in the past decade.
Baez and Cristobal Lopez, a casino tycoon who also expanded his business empire in the past decade, rented properties for their businesses from Los Sauces, a real estate venture focused on the southern region known as Patagonia.
According to the complaint, the rental income was in exchange for political favors.
In 2007 and 2008, Los Sauces owned eight properties in Buenos Aires and Patagonia but did not pay dividends, according to Stolbizer.
In 2009, however, Los Sauces invested more than 9 million pesos ($2.4 million at the time), and another 10 million pesos in 2012, often in connection with companies by Baez and Lopez.
The ventures included the construction of the Hotel La Aldea in partnership with Baez and his son, Martin, who gained notoriety this year after video footage leaked to the press of him counting millions of dollars in a money house.
The Kirchners came under investigation in 2014 for alleged tax irregularities at Hotesur, a hotel operator, which is suspected of doling out political favors in return for renting rooms, according to Stolbizer.
Last month, another federal prosecutor asked for an investigation to be opened into Fernandez de Kirchner for suspected money laundering with Baez, whose empire grew rapidly thanks to landing public works contracts in Patagonia.
Fernandez de Kirchner, who moved to Patagonia after leaving office, has said the attacks are politically motivated to sully her political future.
At a rally last month, she said the new center-right Macri government is trying to plant criminal cases against her and that she is not afraid of what she calls politically motivated attacks.
