– Buried cash? –
Since Macri came to power in December vowing to crack down on graft, authorities have opened sweeping investigations into alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion by the Kirchners and their inner circle.
Cristina Kirchner is facing money-laundering and embezzlement accusations and an indictment for depleting state coffers by having the central bank sell dollar futures at an artificially low price.
Several business executives close to her and her late husband are under investigation for illicit enrichment.
The former head of the Argentine court of auditors, Leandro Despouy, says he long suspected the Kirchners’ inner circle was diverting huge sums of cash from public works projects.
“The dirty money was always in cash,” said Despouy, who served from 2002 to 2016.
“In public works projects, there’s a very clear way to accumulate money. Advances were paid whether construction started or not, and in cash.”
The problem, he said, was how to hide the money.
He said he used to have nightmares about where it could be.
“There was no way to get it out of the country,” he said. “The only way was to bury it.”
Macri came to power in December promising a sea change in Argentine politics.
But he now faces corruption allegations of his own.
The president is under investigation for suspected tax evasion after his name came up in the Panama Papers leaks of offshore accounts in tax havens.
He denies wrongdoing.
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