Fortune is fickle. Until last week, the news was that the clan’s paterfamilias, Carlos Mahiques, alias “Coco” and chambermaid, had celebrated his birthday at the villa of a person he was supposed to investigate, the treasurer of the AFA, Pablo Toviggino. Yesterday, however, the Mahiques took over the agenda for a much more pleasant issue: Juan Bautista, the son, and attorney general of the City of Buenos Aires, has just been named the new Minister of Justice by Javier Milei. Good news that covers up bad news.
The Mahiques were always a judicial clan. In addition to “Coco” and Juan Bautista there is Ignacio, the other son, who was also a prosecutor in the City and also competed for a federal court in Mercedes. They carry it in their DNA.
The patriarch, Carlos, last week decided to renounce the subrogation he exercised in Room I of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation, which must address the investigation into a property attributed to the AFA and valued at more than 20 million dollars. “Coco” will continue as judge of Chamber III of Cassation, where he holds a permanent position, but will no longer be part of the body investigating Toviggino and “Chiqui” Tapia. He resigned in a letter that clarified: “The circumstances that motivated the aforementioned request are strictly functional in nature.”
But the truth is that he did it one day after the journalistic revelation about his birthday celebration at Pilar’s villa that Toviggino owns, back in November.
Those who do not love the family so much claim that it was Mahiques Jr., Juan Bautista, the new Minister of Justice, who proposed that place for the celebration due to his connection with the treasurer of the AFA. Just as it would have also been the son who joined “Coco” to participate in the scandalous excursion to Lago Escondido in which judges and Buenos Aires officials were invited by authorities from Grupo Clarín to enjoy a weekend of relaxation and supposed lobbying at the ranch of English tycoon Joe Lewis, in El Bolsón.
But that is already forgotten history. What matters today is that the Mahiques are still in force, and that the heir of the clan was left with a ministry. A well-deserved award.
