The AFA has a network of companies in the United States and Spain to transfer funds from national team sponsorship

As a precedent for the Sur Finanzas case and the Pilar mansion attributed to leaders of the AFA, there was a case in court in which a business structure of the football company in the USA and Spain where they spent $3 million to sponsor the team in 2021, they recalled Clarion Court sources.

It turns out that the AFA, chaired by Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, signed a memorandum of understanding with the cryptocurrency company in 2021. “BYBIT FINTECH LIMITED” (BFL). In the agreement, the AFA requested the deposit of an advance of $3 million into an account of ODEOMA GESTIÓN SL, a foreign company based in the Kingdom of Spain.

The agreement was put into action and the BFL name appeared on the national team’s training jersey for a few months. But at the end of 2021, the AFA halted the agreement and signed another definitive agreement with cryptocurrency platform Binance for $40 million.

The statement issued yesterday by the AFA lists all the concerns involving Tapia and its treasurer Pablo Toviggino reported, investigated and dismissed. That is one of them. He also denounced “a coordinated attack” against the Argentine Football Federation.

After the contract collapsed, BYBIT denounced alleged international money laundering against all “who are responsible as authors, participants or instigators of the conduct of the AFA; the company ODEOMA GESTION SL; by Martín Eduardo Dell’Oca and the foreign companies ARCOFISA INTERNATIONAL GROUP (AIC), MLS GLOBAL TRADING GROUP (MGTC), SCH CONSULTING GROUP LLC (SCGL) and SAMTAK LLC (SL), all reside in the United States.” He also filed a complaint with the commercial jurisdiction of Spain.

BYBIT representative Agustín Esnal explained that the company “paid the AFA in good faith U$D 3,000,000 to purchase the rights and that said entity requested that the money be deposited for the benefit of a foreign company based in Spain.” He claimed that this application “had the deliberate aim fail to comply with exchange obligations to the detriment of Law 19.359“, in times of the exchange rate renewed by former President K Alberto Fernández.

The lawyer denounced that “the same maneuver aimed to undermine the rights granted to BYBIT, in violation of Article 173, Section 11 of the Penal Code, to subsequently diversify and integrate the illegally obtained funds into the US financial system, using commercial companies based in Miami, etc..” would be fictional“.

However, the lawsuit was unsuccessful in the first instance of the commercial criminal court. The judge and the investigating prosecutor agreed that this was definitely appropriate to the Central Bank of the Republic during the government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, in any case, to lodge a complaint about these characteristics.

Then, on October 5, 2023, Chamber B of the National Court of Appeal for Economic Crimes confirmed the dismissal of the complaint.

At the end of last year, the BYBIT complaint reached the Pena Federal Courtl.

Thus, Hall IV of this court, composed of the judges Gustavo Hornos as president – who voted with a dissenting opinion – Javier Carbajo and Mariano Hernán Borinsky ordered by majority, reject the appeal of the alleged plaintiff “BYBIT FINTECH LIMITED”.“And the case was dismissed.

In a parallel case heard in Spain for breach of contract, the complainant learned that the amount was paid by BFL to AFA. “was transferred to five companies based in the United States at the direction of the latter.”

On the one hand, the AFA carried out a cross-border punitive maneuver for the complainant, which included the following: “a possible violation of the Criminal Exchange Regime.” It decided to receive these amounts abroad, although the obligation would be fulfilled mainly in Argentina. On the other hand, there would have been a “criminal maneuver by the AFA, which would have included a desire to disrupt the rights that it had transferred to the BFL and of which it was making full use.”

In the cassation decision Judges Carbajo and Borinsky affirmed the dismissal of the lawsuit. They understood that this would happen “unfounded” alleging that the money paid by Bybit Fintech Limited to the Argentine Football Association (AFA) was of illegal origin. Also they refused I believe that transfers to companies based abroad would in themselves constitute an additional mechanism for fraudulent activity, attempting to give the appearance of legality to supposedly counterfeit funds.

Contrary to this, Hornos understood that it was not appropriate to dismiss the complaint due to the fact that it constituted the crime of money laundering (Article 303 of the Penal Code). The judiciary had to continue the investigation.

Hornos warned that in order to rule out the reported allegation of money laundering, “circumstances were used.” are not yet clarified by the instructionswithout incorporating into the process the necessary elements of judgment to give precision to the reported event.” All this “taking into account the maximum effort required by the judiciary for a complete investigation into the crime of money laundering,” Hornos added in his minority vote.

He emphasized that the investigation is up to the judges, since the person being investigated was an unlawful act with undeniable assets. must at the same time undertake to investigate the casea, “a complete financial investigation of the individuals involved, allowing us to delve deeper into the aspects reported” and who managed the $3 million.

Even more so, “even considering that there have been complaints.” a set of circumstances that are indications of the commission of the crime of money launderingsuch as the use of legal entities to conceal the true ultimate beneficiaries of an operation and the division of assets,” he stressed.

For Hornos, the financial transfers also said: “are dated after the communication the termination of the contract with “BYBIT FINTECH LIMITED” by the Argentine Football Federation, so they would be compatible with the hypothesis that their aim was to conceal funds obtained through a violation of the agreed rights already exercised.