Justice detected bribes of up to 15% in SIRA during the government of Alberto Fernández

A judicial investigation pending before the court of Ariel Lijo began to reveal new elements about the obscure functioning of the SIRA import system, implemented in 2022 during the administration of Alberto Fernández and Sergio Massa.

The case, which remains under criminal secrecy until this Thursday, points to an alleged bribery scheme to access import authorizations and the official dollar.

According to what was published by the newspaper La Nación, the file, which has been in progress for several months, has already identified at least four businessmen who would have paid bribes of between 10% and 15% to obtain permits.

Suspicious transactions exceed 3.5 million dollars and, according to sources linked to the cause, these would be real and not simulated imports.

The investigation is being led by prosecutor Franco Picardi, who has advanced a series of measures to reconstruct the authorization circuit

and detect liability.

Among them, it requested urgent reports from Customs, the Secretariat of Commerce and the Central Bank, in addition to requiring the lifting of fiscal, banking and stock market secrecy of about 50 individuals and legal entities.

As part of these proceedings, nearly 30 raids were carried out and testimonies were incorporated, together with cell phones provided by officials already accused in the case.

So far, five members of the Central Bank's Non-Financial Institutions Supervision area have been identified: Fabián Violante, Diego Volcic, María Valeria Fernández, Analía Jaime and Romina García.

Businessmen linked to exchange houses were also accused, including Elías Piccirillo, Francisco Hauque, Gonzalo Caló and Martín Migueles, who allegedly participated in the maneuvers under investigation.

The file had a different origin than the current one. In the first stage, prosecutor Picardi was investigating Piccirillo after an accusation from Hauque, who pointed him out for having planted evidence in the context of a debt of six million dollars. From this conflict, the research was expanded and led to the analysis of the SIRA system

.

The SIRA de Massa and Kirchnerism The

SIRA, the Import System of the Argentine Republic, had been announced in October 2022 by the then Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, together with Guillermo Michel in Customs and Matías

Tombolini.

At the time, the Government of Alberto Fernández maintained that the mechanism sought to avoid “revivals” of companies that took advantage of the exchange gap close to 100% between the official dollar and alternative exchange rates.

However, over time, the system began to be questioned for its irregularities and now faces judicial suspicions that could redefine its evaluation.

The case aims to determine if, behind a scheme that was presented as a tool of control and transparency, a parallel circuit of illegal payments operated to access currencies at the official exchange rate.

With the lifting of summary secrecy scheduled in the next few hours, it is expected that more details will be known about the scope of the investigation and those who are likely to be involved in one of the most sensitive causes linked to the economic policy of the previous Kirchner government.