An official driver who writes a diary of collecting bribes, transfer of bags with millions and closed with padlocks, 500 euro bills to make them less bulky, a tax collector murdered: these are some of the novel details in the so-called “notebook cause” in Argentina, which began to be aired in an oral trial.
Cristina Fernández, widow of Kirchner, Argentine president from 2007 to 2015, stands out as a figure in the dock. That’s it sentenced for corruption to six years of confinement, which he meets with an electronic anklet in his apartment in Buenos Aires. They accompany her on the bench 64 big businesspeople and others 21 former officials.
It is debated in the hearings whether the first ones paid bribes to obtain contracts of public works with the State. The funds supposedly went to the official Kirchnerist party and into the pockets of high-ranking officials. This is the largest corruption trial in the history of Argentina, for the crimes of illicit association and bribery.
“The money was delivered in cash to the home of Juncal and Uruguay, of the Kirchner couple, in the event that they were important sums,” confessed Ernesto Clarens, a financier who mediated in the plot by changing the pesos to dollars or euros. Clarens now collaborates as a repentant in exchange for obtaining procedural relief.
Cristina Kirchner, second box on the right.
“In those cases Muñoz was waiting for me in the hall from the ground floor of the building, I – he said – never went up to the apartment.” Daniel Muñoz was a secretary of Néstor Kirchner, president from 2003 to 2007. And at the doors of that home, in 2022, Cristina Fernández suffered a failed assassination attempt with firearm.
The private secretaries of Kirchner and Fernández always appeared in the circuit of transferring bags full of cash. The aforementioned Muñoz and Fabián Gutiérrez both became rich and died early. The first at the age of 59 and the second murdered at the age of 46 by stabbing in a rare event.
“Impunity is not for sale”
The “cause of the notebooks” It is based on the diary written by Oscar Centeno, a driver who transported a high official to collect the bites. Neatly and with the clear handwriting of a schoolboy, he wrote down which businessman they visited, address, time and amount collected. If you didn’t know, you calculated by weight: 10 kilos, equal to one million of dollars.
Covers of the notebooks with Centeno’s annotations.
The former ministers Julio De Vido – already convicted in another case – and Juan Abal Medina, plus the former secretaries of State Ricardo Jaime and Roberto Baratta, stand out as accused. Among the businesspeopleÁngelo Calcaterra is the cousin of Mauricio Macri, Argentine president from 2015 to 2021, and his partner in several companies.
Before the oral trial, 51 former businessmen and officials admitted their guilt and signed agreements as repentant, revealing details of the plot. They even proposed a “comprehensive reparation” by returning money to the State. But the prosecutor Fabiana León replied with the phrase “Impunity is not sold in this prosecutor’s office”.
Pages from the bite diary written by Centeno.
Cristina Fernández assured that she is innocent and considered that the notebooks “they were not written, they were manufactured”. For the former president, everything is “a judicial show” with the purpose of “distracting attention” on the eve of the labor and pension reforms. If convicted, she faces a possible sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
The hearings at the moment are not in person and the accused appear virtuallyvia zoom. But it is expected that the investigative statements will begin in 2026 and there they will have to be presented to the court. As some are summoned to testify 600 witnessesthe trial could last until 2027.