“I thought the money belonged to Cristina”

“Cristina is very vindictive” was read out at the court’s ninth hearing Judgment Notebooks when checking that Confession of José López It reported in detail about the bribery cycle surrounding the construction chamber. The expression was his way of explaining when asked to be charged as a collaboratorwhy he had not provided further details about the bags containing 9 million US dollars that he wanted to hide in the monastery. The story explains the hours before, the handover of the money and his statement: “It is obvious that I believed that the money belonged to Cristina and that she was the one who sent Fabián and that is why I listened to her.”.

The “Camarita” concentrated on this during the teaching phase Posters for public road construction work. The plan was as follows: 19 companies met in different locations to choose which projects they wanted to keep. The contracts were distributed before the Kirchner government launched the public tender. Later, this list was sent to National Roads through José López to “adjust the values,” that is, to apply the bribe to the amount. The same amount ranged from 3% to 20%, depending on the cost of the contract and whether or not there was a financial advance.

He was the financier Ernesto Clarens the one who said it was achieved in this circuit Move more than $30 million. He was responsible for converting the bribes paid in pesos into dollars.

In a section of the reading of the accusations, during the hearing of the trial in which the former president is the main defendant, accused of being the head of an illegal organization, López’s contributions as an accused collaborator were heard.. It came to the bags containing $9 million that he unsuccessfully tried to hide in the General Rodríguez Monastery in June 2016. He mentioned Fabián Gutiérrez and the “orders of Cristina Kirchner”.

The meeting, the 3 men and the secretary

The story began as follows: “Before Daniel Muñoz’s death, he contacted me Fabián Gutiérrez, Néstor and Cristina’s secretary, had the absolute trust of both of them and wanted to talk to me.. The meeting took place at NH hotel called City Hotel. I don’t remember the date, but I can say it was a few days before June 14th. On this occasion Fabián told me this I had to move some moneyHe didn’t tell me the exact amount, but I assumed it was a large sum. We talked about it for a while and thought about possible locations, I thought, but I didn’t tell him, in the monastery I eventually took him to..

The chronology With these data it was reconstructed: On June 13, late at night, “three people appeared on behalf of Fabián and left me the bags that were later kidnapped and they left.

It was not the only order he received from these people, José López said: “Before, when the people who brought me the money were there, they forced me to throw all the phones I had into the river, except the ones that kidnapped me, because they were my personal ones.”

As we read further, we learned the reasons why José López did not provide any information about the money bags at the time. He is convicted of illicit enrichment because he was never able to explain the origin of the $9 millionS.

“I would now like to explain the reason why I have not been more precise in my previous statements under certain circumstances: I did so out of fear,” the hearing said.

During the investigation phase, he was asked to whom he was referring and he replied: “For fear of Cristina Kirchner, a very vindictive person that I have known for a long time, for fear of being discovered or betrayed, for fear of my life and that of my family. I want to make it clear that when Fabián contacted me, I knew without a doubt that the messages or orders that came with him would come from Cristina Kirchner, apart from the fact that Fabián was referring to Muñoz’s wife.”

He once again referred to the obvious fear and added: “I’m not afraid of him, but of the contact person he has, which is Cristina.” I fear her because she is vengeful. For example, when Daniel Varizat’s building in Rio Gallegos collapsed during concreting and he was general director of public works, Cristina had previously said about this person: “This son of a bitch should be put in prison.” I saw Cristina perform.”

In this sense, he said: “Fabián Gutiérrez was functional for both Néstor and Cristina, but at that time Cristina was the only one still alive. The money came from the collection. I don’t know where the money was before they brought it to me.” If he called me Fabián it was because Cristina told him so, Fabián was Cristina. I wondered at that moment why they had chosen me.”

In this context, another concept slipped in: “It is obvious that I believed that the money belonged to Cristina and that she was the one who sent Fabián, and that is why I listened to her. So I went to the monastery and everything that is public knowledge happened.”

José López’s confession went up to the moment when he recounted a delivery to Cristina Kirchner’s apartment: “In July or August 2007, an important delivery was made through the main entrance door of the house on Uruguay Street. There they took a suitcase with around 8 million dollars to be picked up for road work. That day I spoke to Muñoz several times. This delivery was for the 2007 campaign, when there was a campaign. They demanded advances in a single payment and.” In this way, a larger amount of money was collected at the request of Muñoz and De Vido.”

Explaining this aspect in detail, he stated: “This is how this important figure was accumulated. The person who explained to me what the collection system looked like was De Vido, and he ordered me to coordinate it with Muñoz because it was only possible with him, because Kirchner always said: “That’s not what political money is for, we don’t even talk about it between ourselves.”

This system continued like this “until Kirchner died. Until that moment everything was mechanical, I had meetings with Wagner and he lowered my requirements, I in turn always did it according to the guidelines set by De Vido. In 2010, with the death of Kirchner, everything was suspended and in January 2011 the President called me in the Olivos office in the Chief of Staff area and told me: “You can be part of the problem or the solution” and showed me the notebook that Néstor Kirchner always wrote to hold personal hearings, and what happened at these meetings he wrote in the notebooks that used to come from ARTE. I knew about those notebooks because he generally wrote everything down there.”

Once again it was heard: “I told Cristina everything about how there is a collection system for the roadworksI told him about the mechanism that I knew in the rest of the Ministry and that I also knew nothing about the OCCOVI mechanism until Uberti left, and I made it clear that after Uberti nothing was collected in the OCCOVI. “I think he didn’t believe me and sent me a month-long audit.”

José López once again referred to the almost hour-long meeting with Cristina Kirchner. He said this: “I told him everything I knew, what the mechanism was, that there was no collection in the OCCOVI, which depended on Roads, which in turn depended on me, as I said. That meeting lasted about an hour. He gave me no instructions at that meeting. As far as I know, the collection operation was stopped, at least as far as I was concerned.”

That changed some time later. “By the winter of 2011, De Vido came and told me that we needed to restart fundraising for the 2011 campaign and that my contact was Roberto Baratta. My relationship with Baratta was not friendship, he was the undersecretary for coordination. The plan was to talk to De Vido and check with Baratta.”