Former President of Argentina Alberto Fernández (Credit: Matias Baglietto/Shutterstock)
Prosecutors in Argentina have indicted former President Alberto Fernández for “negotiations incompatible with the exercise of public office” in a case that alleges he and others illicitly directed insurance policy commissions.
Businessman Héctor Martínez Sosa and his wife, María Cantero — Fernández's longtime secretary — were also indicted in the case. The Merco Press reports that during Fernández's presidency, Martínez Sosa’s company secured several contracts across 19 public agencies, which generated a large amount of commissions.
The case alleges that Fernández, Martínez Sosa and others illicitly influenced these agencies’ selection of insurance brokers and inflated the commissions for policies contracted by public entities.
A key piece of evidence in the case, Merco Press notes, is a 662-page report from the country’s Office of the Prosecutor for Economic Crime and Money Laundering that shows Fernández issued bills to Martínez Sosa and other related companies for alleged professional services from 2010 to 2019; prior to his presidency. The last invoice was dated four days before Fernández assumed office.
According to the Buenos Aires Herald, the defense claims the invoices are payments for a service Fernández provided to Martínez Sosa that included reports on Argentina’s economic and political situation that were made when he was not in public office. Fernández allegedly had additional clients for whom he provided these services.
In Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello’s order, he states that in the middle of his term as president in December 2021, Fernández decreed that Argentina’s entire public sector was to contract exclusively with Nación Seguros S.A., which was then led by Fernández’s friend Alberto Pagliano.
This resulted in tremendous growth for the company and allegedly led around 60% of commissions paid between 2019 and 2023 to pass to Martínez Sosa’s firm.
Fernández appeared before Judge Casanello on July 4 to expand on his testimony. During this, he claimed that the charges against him are “neither clear nor precise,” and defended his alleged actions as an effort to “avoid and diminish the intervention of third parties that could endanger state property.”
He denied any involvement in activities that were intended to harm the state.
Though the judge allowed Fernández to remain free while the case proceeds, he ordered a freeze on around $11 million of the former president’s assets. If convicted, Fernández could face a sentence of one to six years in prison.
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