ROSARIO.- The downfall Vicentin delay In December 2019, parallel legal scenarios developed at Argentina’s then fourth-largest agricultural exporter. On the one hand, the course of the insolvency proceedings, which resulted in a significant development this Thursday Judge Fabián Lorenzini decided to approve Grassi SAa company from Rosario dedicated to the brokerage of grain and the control of the agricultural exporter. On the other hand, a fraud case was being processed against him in the Rosario Public Prosecutor’s Office 16 Vicentin executiveswho were indicted by the then prosecutor Miguel Moreno, currently chamber judge. Last March, four board members were arrested, including Daniel Buyatti, former president of the company; Roberto Gazze, former manager; Omar Scarel, another former owner of the company, and the accountant Alberto Julián Macua.
Prosecutors Moreno and Sebastián Narvaja considered that the former directors, although not part of Vicentin’s management, continued to run the company and use funds from the agricultural exporter. The arrest of Vicentin’s four key men caused a stir in the Rosario courtsafter prosecutors pointed out that the former directors had taken money from the bankrupt company to cover defense costs.
The criminal chamber later decided this Buyatti, Gazze, Scarel and Macua are released. The chambermaid, Gustavo Salvador, accused prosecutors of violating constitutional guarantees with their actions and decided to grant a grant Released on $1,000,000 bail to each of the former directors.
In Judge Salvador’s decision, he warned that the evidence obtained regarding the legal fees paid to the defense attorneys was invalid because it was obtained “in breach of the guarantees.” In the previous hearings, defense attorney Jorge Ilharrescondo described the disclosure of the fees, which, according to the accusation, were financed from funds that were supposed to be in the custody of the judge, as a “gross violation of constitutional guarantees.”
There have been no significant developments in this case since then. In early October, according to sources, officials from the prosecutor’s office met with the plaintiff and defense attorneys in this case to begin examining the possibility of a shortened plea agreement without this measure carrying the risk of the directors returning to prison. According to the judicial sources consulted, this possibility could materialize next year.
The crux of the fraud case lies in the fact that the directors who ran the company They kept Vicentin’s true economic situation quiet for years. They would have done that deceived banks and agricultural producers who cooperated with the company under the “price fixing” method. According to the accusation, the massive debt and lack of transparency were the decisive factor in the company’s insolvency and subsequent default.
In December 2023, the public prosecutor’s office requested the opening of a trial and requested prison sentences of between 3 and 17 years for 16 former directors and employees of the company, including Buyatti, Macua, Gazze and Scarel. Also indicted were executives from affiliated companies, auditors from the consulting firm KPMG and the insolvency administrators..
Sources close to Vicentin’s former directors said they are confident a solution will be found. a settlement in the criminal case for fraud after a chapter was closed after the Grassi Group took control of the company. The suspicion that several former directors have – as sources admitted to LA NACION – is that the criminal proceedings were advanced and that some pressure was exerted on this part of the company in order to pave the way and prevent the bankruptcy of the agricultural exporter.
“Between December 2019 and the end of 2024, the criminal group, through improper administrative maneuvers, unlawfully withheld funds from the group’s companies amounting to an estimated nominal $952,655,044,” said prosecutor Narvaja of the Rosario Economic Crimes Unit in the hearing held in March this year.
According to prosecutors, the former executives of the agricultural exporter also used group companies’ funds to pay the surety insurance (deposit) they had to take out with Sancor Seguros to avoid imprisonment when they were charged in the first part of this trial, which began in 2020. Specifically, according to the documents, they used $40,751,243 from the company to pay a personal deposit.
The prosecutors’ hypothesis is that the “criminal group” Between December 2019, when Vicentin was declared insolvent, and the end of 2024, the company persisted in improper administrative maneuvers, thereby illegally withdrawing funds from all affiliated companies amounting to just over 890 million pesos. The companies whose assets were affected by this illegal maneuver were Sir Cotton, Oleaginosa San Lorenzo, Vicentin, Algodonera Avellaneda and Sottano. According to prosecutors, the fraud consisted of financing personal expenses. They said that they had taken the then equivalent of 20,946 minimum wages.
This new chapter arose from documents submitted by a group of minority shareholders of the company who asked to become plaintiffs. The court rejected this proposal, but the Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office analyzed the information it submitted and opened an investigation into the use of funds by the directors of the agricultural exporter to cover personal expenses, such as the payment of fees to their lawyers, with an estimated value of $1.5 million. It was also discovered that air travel was invoiced for one of the company’s aircraft. The minority shareholders, many of whom share the same surname as the agricultural exporter’s founders, were the ones who provided this information..
At eye level, Omar Scarel is involved in another case involving former ARCA Rosario boss Carlos Vaudagnawho in his repentance – in another case in which the former federal judge of Rosario Marcelo Bailaque is imprisoned – admitted that he had illegally advised Scarel while he held the position of director of the former AFIP.
In his statement before the Federal Court Vaudagna admitted that he benefited the grain company, which defaulted in 2019, totaling $143,254,723.61 by evading investigation into the crime of embezzlement of VAT refunds on exportscommitted in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The former head of the AFIP also admitted that, between May 2018 and July 2019, he intervened and exercised his influence with ARCA officials in charge of monitoring and inspecting the tax credits unduly received by Vicentín SAIC. Vaudagna’s maneuver, as he admitted, was to avoid a challenge and reduce the amount of the tax adjustment established by the exAFIP in order to avoid criminal charges against the company.
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