The federal judge issued a new indictment against the former minister and his wife and ordered an attachment of $998 million
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Former Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido added a new indictment for corruption. Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello charged him with the crime of illicit enrichment in a case initiated in 2008, which had been pending for almost eighteen years. The ruling also reached his wife, Alessandra Minnicelli, and ordered a joint attachment of 998 million pesos.
The investigation, driven by Federal Prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, focused on the increase in assets recorded by the couple during the years in which De Vido held public office, a period that covers the presidencies of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. According to the court ruling, the former official increased his assets significantly without being able to justify that growth with legitimate income or declared lawful resources. The amount observed by the courts comes to, according to the expert analysis, about 690,000 dollars.
Julio de Vido fue ministro de las administraciones kirchneristas.
The decision is based on the report by the Supreme Court's Specialized Expert Body, which detected significant inconsistencies in the couple's asset declarations. Among them, the impossibility of validating the cash —in pesos and dollars— that they claimed to possess at the beginning of the period under review, as well as the absence of documentation proving Minnicelli's professional income. The experts also emphasized that both registered for the Personal Assets tax only in 2002, a fact that, for the court, is not compatible with the holding of declared foreign currency.
To this was added the fact that the government of Santa Cruz reported that there are no sworn asset statements filed between 2000 and 2003, a period in which De Vido was a provincial official. The technical analysis also detected scant detail of personal and family expenditures, which would not correspond to the level of assets evidenced.
One of the central points of the indictment is the purchase of an apartment on Avenida Del Libertador, acquired between 2007 and 2009 through a corporate structure that, according to the investigation,was intended to conceal the property's real ownership. The property was registered in the name of the company Uni-Vite Argentina S.A., whose capital would not have allowed it to undertake an operation of that magnitude. Despite formally appearing as tenants, De Vido and Minnicelli would have been the true owners and beneficiaries of the apartment for years.
De Vido junto a su esposa procesada, Alessandra Minnicelli.
Official expert reports established that the real value of the property was significantly higher than the price for which it was allegedly acquired. In addition, during the raids, corporate documentation was seized that, according to the court, directly links the couple to the purchase of the share package of the firm used for the transaction.
Casanello concluded that the investigation managed to gather an extensive chain of consistent indications that lend solidity to the hypothesis of illicit enrichment, by considering that the funds used to acquire the company and, indirectly, the property, would have come from the former official himself. The new indictment adds to a long judicial record that includes De Vido's conviction for the Once train tragedy, one of the most serious symbols of the failure and corruption of the Kirchnerist model.
