In 2005, Lázaro Báez already owned Austral Construcciones. He did not come from the field of public works and had never been in charge of a company. On June 10 of that year, with a dozen road contracts, the company signed a trust agreement with Néstor Kirchner represented by his son Máximo. It was the first of a series of agreements signed by the owner of the holding company investigated for receiving directed contracts and the national deputy recently appointed by the trial prosecutors, for “intervening and deciding on part of the corrupt public work that Báez received.”
During the arguments on Friday, prosecutor Diego Luciani, in the trial for alleged corruption in public works, said that there was a “marked intervention” of the son of the vice president occurred at the end of 2014, regarding various contracts that were turned over to Santa Cruz, some of which ended up in the hands of Báez.
The prosecution returned to expose before all the defendants some of the 26,000 messages from José López’s cell phone that were analyzed. The former Secretary of Public Works asked Máximo Kirchner “where he wanted it to be 100 blocks of pavements” that the Austral Group won, among other millionaire projects. “The son of the former president decided and supervised the works,” Luciani sentenced.
Lazaro Baez and Maximo Kirchner they know each other. They signed various commercial agreements, they are joined by hotel businesses, checks, bills and contracts.
The trust that was signed in 2005 was for the construction of a building located in Río Gallegos, which was registered in the name of Los Sauces SAthe Kirchner’s real estate agency that ended up being investigated for money laundering: the national deputy and businessman K intervened in these maneuvers, said the court.
Two years later, around 2007, it was signed a sales contract between the construction company that during that period had received 20 road tenders and the Kirchners for a complex of five units. In the same period, an operation of barter between Cristina Kirchner and Austral Construcciones whose sole client was the national government.
This swap was for the former president expand one of your hotelsthe one adjacent to his residence in El Calafate, on land that belonged to Austral.
Years later, with the donation of her fortune in equal parts, the vice president caused Máximo and Florencia Kirchner to jointly own the 87,000-square-meter plot of land, valued at $17,400,000, with Austral Construcciones.
Some time later, under the first presidency of Cristina Kirchner and with Lázaro Báez already positioned as an important construction businessman, with the representation of Máximo Kirchner, the former president a sale ticket transfer with Austral Construcciones: ceded, sold and transferred to the construction company for $381,600 the rights arising from the bill of sale of a property located in Río Gallegos.
Austral Construcciones added another link with the Kirchners: they made a loan of 8,329,596.60 so that in 2008 they can buy Hotesur SA, owner of the Alto Calafate hotel that Báez later managed. In addition, with 7 of his firms, he rented rooms that he never used, but guaranteed income for this to former presidents for $ 14 million.
That debt lasted for years and even ended up being declared by Máximo Kirchner as the owner of half of Hotesur. The justice determined that Cristina, Máximo and Florencia Kirchner together with Báez laundered $80 million with the hotels. The accusation is analyzed by the Cassation Chamber to see if they face the oral trial or not.
There was more. Valle Miter (de Báez) that Hotesur exploited for a monthly canon of $80,000, signed a similar contract to manage the Las Dunas inn. It was for the period March 2011 to February 2012, for $2,216,064. The agreement was finalized on May 17, 2011 with the representative of the Succession, that is, with Máximo Kirchner.
During those years there was a route of 93 checks that united the Báez family with the national deputy. Between 2009 and 2014, Loscalzos y Del Curto, one of the construction companies used to receive public road works, issued those checks that guaranteed millionaire income to the Kirchner family, for the rental of various properties, for $ 2,769,515.
According to the official documentation, those checks that were first issued in the name of Néstor Kirchner and since 2010 in the name of the Succession of the inheritance, under the administration of the leader of La Cámpora, “They were mostly charged by Máximo Kirchner”. He knew that money route, those deals, those deals.
It must be remembered that Loscalzos and del Curto, who issued the checks month after month, He built four apartments for $1,466,012.31, which are part of the real estate assets. Later it was Austral Construcciones which became a tenant, guaranteeing income to the Kirchners for 21 million pesos.
Justice has more documentation. In the case of Hotesur and Los Sauces there are 93 receipts for bank operations “concluded” between Máximo Kirchner and Austral Construcciones. And several property rental contracts in which the son of Cristina Kirchner and Báez intervened. They were not friends, but they were business partners.
