“The President (Cristina Kirchner) told him he should be awarded one Work in the south To Christopher Lopez. Finally they gave it to him.” This is how the financier remembered it Ernesto Clarens Another symbolic case of corruption K, in his confession as part of the file on Cartelization of public worksknown as “the Camarita”a special section in the trial of Cuadernos de las Bribes.
It is a Route in Santa Cruz and despite the fact that the government of Alberto Fernández handed it over again to the owner of the Indalo group, it was never finished. The story is part of the record and will be heard at the reading of the allegations at the oral and public trial this week, where it will be at the heart of the road bribery cycle.
Another businessman K lives in the 243,943 square kilometer area of Santa Cruz, Lazaro Baezmanaged to obtain 51 road contracts for 46,000 million pesos, a figure updated at the time the damage caused was determined in 685,000 million pesos.
50% of the roads that Báez was supposed to build or repair were never completed but were charged an average premium of 65%.
During the term of Alberto Fernández (with Cristina Kirchner as vice president) One of the routes that had not yet been completed was put out to tender again. The work was divided into three contracts; the most expensive, with a budget of almost 4.8 billion pesos and for which there was only one bidding company: CPC SA, Cristóbal López.
It is a Provincial Road 39, which connects to other roads. Everything would be funded by the nation. The other two, cheaper sections aim to follow the route between Lago Posadas (north of Santa Cruz) and the border with Chile.
The largest investment should go to the tendered works “Study, project, construction of basic works and paving of the section between Bajo Caracoles (RN40) and the town of Lago Posadas”. The official budget was 4,754,579,651 pesos. This section was awarded to Cristóbal López in 2022.
However, the work did not progress and the Santa Cruz government put a pause on the project. While the Kirchnerist businessman claimed a debt for unpaid work.
It is not the first time that López’s name has been linked to this K corruption. In the Cuadernos trial he is accused of having paid bribes to the government of Cristina Kirchner. The attributed active bribery occurs in six cases and in the related “Camarita” case.
Cristóbal López was mentioned again in the confession of the financier Ernesto Clarens What was the payment cycle for illegal funds? and depending on which contracts were awarded, which payments were made from 3% to 20%.
In a section of his contribution as an accused collaborator, Clarens detailed: “I continued to carry out this operation until 2010. I would like to add that José López called me one day and He told me that the president told him that a project in the south should be awarded to Cristóbal López“I think it was Route 40, Perito Moreno – Bajo Caracoles section.”
The problem, the financier continued, was that “the tender was already open. So he instructed me to call everyone who had bought the specs.” He explained to them that the work was for Cristóbal López and that they had to step aside or accompany them. Finally they gave it to López”.
How did the “Camarita” work? Clarens gave the following details: “Vialidad Nacional called for a tender, the interested parties purchased documents and everyone was called to the ‘Camarita’. The first thing that was done was to ‘collect the pass’; that is, if any of those sitting at that table had given the pass to another company in a previous tender, I asked this company to give up this work“.
Then “it played out its position in the ranking list until the group of people gathered became smaller and there were, for example, four companies left, where the passports appeared again, h.”until the winner emerged“If there were two left, they went into a UTE (Transitional Business Union).”
After the winner was chosen, “the discussion relaxed about the price to offer. If we look at the form I provided, we will see that it was always between 20% and 4 to 5 companies over the official budget.
The official budgets were largely done well, Clarens assured, but later “there were discrepancies in the offers and then in the additional offers. After the work there could be discrepancies.” others where there was also bribery, but I didn’t collect the money. “The money that circulated in this context is difficult to estimate, I estimate it was around $30 million.”
The relationship between Cristóbal López and Cristina Kirchner also developed in the private sphere: it was the Main tenant of Los Sauces SAinvestigated the former president’s company for money laundering. Both will appear in court for this case in 2026.
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