And where is the money?

Perhaps it was necessary that corruption and impunity in Argentina reach the extraordinary levels that reached the Kirchner government to begin a process of purification like the one that is currently living.

Chávez and the Kirchner couple

Corruption in Argentina was not born with Kirchnerism, nor has it died with them. There has been it before and it would be somewhat innocent to deny that it still exists today. But what distinguishes the Kirchner government from its successors may not be simply a matter of degree, but the fact that corruption was at the base of its entire strategy of power building. In order to sustain the structure of "militants" like the one it maintained, led by organizations with mafia-like gestures such as La Campora, it is necessary to have an increasingly abundant box, which inevitably is accompanied by an increasingly deficient state.

The circumstances occurred in such a way that it seems that the time has come for justice to start working, in what seems to be the beginning of a version of what was the Mani pulite in Italy or Lava Jato in Brazil . Neither the prosecutors themselves expected to collect the evidence as quickly and easily as they do in the respective cases. How can such imprudence be explained in the actions of these thieves? It will be that so many years of impunity take him to the corrupt to carelessness and to the naturalization of his infamous procedure. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the Kirchnerists believed that they would continue in power for a long time and perhaps uninterruptedly. And power in his case meant first of all impunity. To such an extent there was impunity for the officials of that government, who made pass through suicide the murder of a prosecutor of the Nation (Nisman) who dared to raise a complaint against the then president (nothing to envy Don Corleone).

In short, that Kirchnerism was perpetuated in power was then quite likely. What happened with Chavez in Venezuela was the best example of what Cristina was looking for in Argentina. But a combination of chance (such as the death of Néstor Kirchner), some courageous and valuable actions of the opposition (I mention Lilita Carrio who denounced everything that the mafioso action of that government could) and deficiencies or clumsiness of Kirchnerism itself (a president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who did not know how to put aside his arrogance and intransigence when she needed it) ended up dethroning them.

In recent years, after the change of government, the Argentines have seen scenes of the most striking around officials suspected of justice, such as those bags full of dollars of José López (former secretary of public works), who for fear that justice would find them in his house came out one dawn and threw them over the walls of a religious convent and then proceeded to bury them there. With the bad fortune (for López) that a neighbor of the convent, that night had insomnia, witnessed the unusual scene and alerted the police.

Detention of José López

And then appeared what perhaps even the most optimistic prosecutor would have imagined: some notebooks in which the driver of one of the officials in charge of collecting bribes scored absolutely all his journeys for years. There have been detailed names of officials and businessmen, schedules and places of millionaire collections, mode of transport of money (handbags) and the addresses in which the proceeds were delivered.

That was the initial kick for many businessmen and some officials mentioned in the notebooks began to confess, trying to avoid jail, as they seek to fit the figure of the repentant. But it must be seen that in order to fit into that figure the confession of the repentant must give justice information that it considers novel and useful for the progress of the investigation, otherwise it will be treated like any other defendant. This leads to a sort of fight between the accused for speaking first. And it is worth noting that it is the employers, before the officials, the first to confess (perhaps the psyche of the corrupt official is better prepared to withstand the threat of confinement).

The notebooks of the bribes

So justice has been collecting an abundant amount of information on the whole web of corruption that would have as chiefs to the former presidents Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. One of the repentants is the accountant of the Kirchner family.

But there is something they can not find: the stolen billions. To such an extent that whoever provides information that allows to find money from corruption is being offered a reward equivalent to 5% of what is found.

The money was received in dollar bills and made the whole journey from the hands of businessmen to the president himself in bags full. It is believed that a large part of this money may be buried, although much, perhaps most of it, will have been used to maintain the power structure, with which it will have spread among several actors. This being the case, it seems very difficult to trace the road or the paths that most of the stolen money may have taken and even less to recover it.

Looking for buried money

It is interesting to note that what for Argentine justice is the most difficult to achieve today, that is, reconstructing the route of corruption money, would be the easiest if the world instead of Fiatcoins used as an exchange cryptocurrencies, that thanks to its distributed accounting all the money would be traceable without place to mistakes. And it seems that the corrupt could not win much by burying his digital wallet somewhere.