The criminal responsibility for the trip to Lago Escondido by judges, prosecutors, media entrepreneurs and former intelligence agents “should reach the companies involved,” Deputy Leopoldo Moreau told Télam, and recalled that Law 27,401 establishes which criminal figures should be applied to legal persons before facts such as the one investigated by the Federal Court of Bariloche.
The legislator of the Frente de Todos pointed out to the companies Telecom, Clarín and Hidden Lake SA (Lago Escondido) as subject to an investigation for the alleged crimes of “bribery and influence peddling”. from their participation -direct or indirect- in the organization of the VIP excursion to the south of the country.
Law 27,401 establishes the criminal liability regime applicable to private legal persons, whether of national or foreign capital, with or without state participation, and “It provides for sanctions ranging from the suspension of activities from 2 to 10 years to the removal of state benefits such as official advertisingheand the penalties are aggravated if they are permit holders of public services,” explained Moreau.
The deputy also requested the extension of the complaint in the file headed by the subrogative federal judge of Bariloche Silvina Domínguez and that investigates the possible commission of the crimes of “non-compliance with the duties of a public official and acceptance of gifts.”
In dialogue with this agencyMoreau considered that both the trip to Lago Escondido and the messages exchanged by the flight participants “are confirmation of what we presumed and knew, the existence of a media-judicial mafia that has been operating in the country for many years.”
He also assured that this “mafia” fulfills “a double role”, since on the one hand “it has a fundamental role in the persecution of the Argentine popular movement and its most prominent leaders” and on the other “since 2019 it has fulfilled an important task in guaranteeing the impunity regarding the institutional and economic irregularities that were committed during the macrismo”.
For Moreau, the trip and the leaked messages from the Telegram groups that the travelers created “indecently show how judges and prosecutors exchange favors with a Group (businessman) whose activities transcend the media and encompasses a monopoly in telephone matters, from a grassroots of data, provision of internet service and platforms”.
Judges Julián Ercolini, Carlos Mahiques, Pablo Yadarola and Pablo Cayssials are charged in the case; the attorney general of CABA, Juan Bautista Mahiques; the Buenos Aires Minister of Security and Justice, Marcelo D’Alessandro; former AFI agent Leonardo Bergroth; the businessman Tomás Reinke and the directors of Grupo Clarín Pablo Casey and Jorge Rendo.
The judicial case began from the complaint made on October 24 by the lawyer Marcelo Hertzriken Velasco before the federal prosecutor’s office of Bariloche, subrogated by María Cándida Etchepare.
The lawyer based his presentation on an article published by Página/12 on October 17, in which it was reported for the first time about a trip – made four days before, on the 13th of that month – shared by judges, prosecutors and officials porteños to Bariloche that included a stay at Lago Escondido, at the ranch owned by British tycoon Joe Lewis.
Then the text and audio messages that the travelers plus the directors of Grupo Clarín Casey and Rendo began to send each other through the Telegram application were leaked. since the same day that Página/12 published the note.
From these chats it can be deduced that those involved devised strategies to avoid being accused of the crime of “gifts”: they spoke of obtaining backdated invoices, they proposed to unify a version – everything indicates that it was false – about the reason for the trip, they mentioned that it was necessary to speak with journalists and media owners to stop or direct the repercussions.
They even boasted – in the case of the head of the CABA prosecutors, Juan Bautista Mahiques – of having spoken with the prosecutor Etchepare, who had shown “a good predisposition” to accept evidence measures and would have guaranteed that she would send the file to the federal courts from Commodore Py.
Regarding the work of the prosecutor in the case, Moreau maintained that “her best defense is to act transparently and without being pressured” despite the mention that they made of her in the chats that were disseminated by various media, and in the same sense highlighted that Etchepare “refused to change some paragraphs of the accusation, as suggested by interim prosecutor Eduardo Casal, who sent her to call his office in Buenos Aires immediately.”
Secondly, The FdT deputy questioned that during the annual dinner of the Association of Magistrates and Officials of the National Justice “neither the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Horacio Rosatti, nor the president of the Association, Marcelo Gallo Tagle, made reference to this casewhich is the most scandalous in Argentine judicial history”.
“No one said anything, and I’m not referring to the chats but to the trip itself, which violates the basic rules of the magistracy,” Moreau said.
The file processed in the Federal Court of Bariloche contains so far a series of measures aimed at determining who or who financed the VIP getaway of “los huemules”, as the participants of the trip to Lago Escondido called themselves in the chats .
To do this, prosecutor Etchepare took testimony from the manager of the Lago Escondido ranch, Nicolás Van Ditmar, who is seen receiving travelers in the photos and footage from the Bariloche airport, along with Casey and Rendo.
In the imputation request, the prosecutor stated that after the request of the public prosecutor, Van Ditmar presented “invoices issued in favor of some of the accused (with the exception of Bergroth and Reinke) for the sum of 605 dollars each.”
For Etchepare, “the documents show a clear discrepancy with the time they would have stayed at the establishment, since the service was provided on October 13, 14 and 15, while the receipts date from the 28th.”
On December 12, Judge Domínguez led a raid on the Lago Escondido facilities that lasted for more than twelve hours and in which federal forces seized cell phones and documentation, both administrative and billing of the place.
At the same time, in the Buenos Aires town of San Fernando, a similar procedure was carried out in the offices and hangar of the company Servicios y Emprendimientos Aeronáuticos SA -whose fantasy name is Flyzar-, owner of the plane in which they traveled to Bariloche Ercolini, Bergroth, Reinke, Juan Mahiques, D’Alesandro, Carlos Mahiques, Yadarola and Cayssials.
Flyzar presented invoices “many of them dated the same October 13 for the sum of 120,000 pesosexcept for those corresponding to Bergroth, dated the 17th and 19th of the same month, for the sum of 120,000 and 60,000 pesos, respectively”.
“It is striking that in all cases the payments appear as made in the ‘cash’ modality and that the payment was made the same day of the flight,” warned the prosecutor on this point.
