Agustina Propato and Sergio Berni They have been in a relationship for ten years and together they had a son, Juan, who was born in 2014. That same year, according to her sworn statement, they entered her estate two apartments in the City of Buenos Aires. One of 71 square meters and another of almost 140 meters. In addition, a piece of land in El Calafate of more than 600 meters. At that time, Propato was undersecretary of Citizen Participation and depended, according to the organization chart, on her partner Sergio Berni. In other words, she was a public official.
Now, for those movements that were the starting point and that later ended with the purchase of a house facing the lake in San Carlos de Bariloche, a piece of land and three apartments in the same city, the couple will be investigated after a complaint filed by the opposition. Her heritage did not stop growing in all these years.
Berni and Propato were denounced last week by the deputies Mónica Frade and Juan Manuel López, from the Civic Coalition of Elisa Carrió. They accuse him of illicit enrichment. The case is being processed in Court No. 11, which Judge Julián Ercolini subrogates today.
In the brief presented by the deputies against their peer -today Propato is a national deputy- they affirm that Berni’s couple registers a patrimonial jump of more than 90 percent in the 2014: went from declaring $4,142,117 in 2013 to $7,621,302 a year later. Added to this is a particularity in the estimate of the 140-square-meter apartment that, according to the complaint, “values in the 2020 declaration at $782,492 and in 2021 at $2,084,900.” And the complainants add: “This occurs precisely at the critical moment in the real estate market, where real estate prices have collapsed.” In other words, when all the properties depreciated, Mrs. Berni’s apartment became worth more.
Among the latest real estate news from the Berni-Propato couple is also investment in Bariloche. NEWS had reported, in March of this year, that they bought a lot in his name at kilometer 6 of Bustillos Avenue, to which is now added the revelation about other properties of the couple in that city of the Rio Negro province. It is a house in front of the Nahuel Huapi lake of 1,022 square meters and three apartments in a complex, in another part of the city closer to the airport. These assets were confirmed to the television program “Periodismo Para Todos” by Berni’s own accountant, who clarified that they are not presented in the affidavit of the Buenos Aires Minister of Security because they were acquired by the company that the Buenos Aires Minister of Security has with his sister and mother: Integral Logistics Río Turbio SA. However, the electricity bill for the three units that belong to Berni are in his name and not the company’s, and the gas bill for the lake house is also in the minister’s personal name.
At this time, to try to remedy the mistake, the official declared the house of Bariloche before the AFIP. pure untidiness.
Bernie’s numbers
Berni had already been investigated for enrichment for the period 2006-2013 when he was denounced by the then deputy Manuel Garrido and it was dismissed, that is to say that, for Justice, that economic period of the minister would be clarified. That investigation included properties in El Chaitén, 28 de Noviembre and a field in the Lima area, Zárate, which he bought during the first years of Kirchnerism. Now he and his partner, Agustina Propato, will be investigated for the period 2014-2022. The suspicion of the researchers is that, with two salaries from the State, they could never justify such an increase in assets.
Berni had, in 2003, a declared patrimony of US$88,000; in 2019, he had climbed to US$1,450,000 and, since then -coincident with his role in the ministry, but also with the course of the pandemic- it has climbed to US$3,041,000. The declared real estate assets of the Bernis consist of 16 properties among properties in CABA, province of Buenos Aires and Santa Cruz.
The real estate plot of the minister and his partner made his detractors ask for his resignation again. But he continues in his post, despite having enemies as important as Maximo Kirchner and Martin Insaurralde, the ally of the son of the vice president who landed in the Cabinet headquarters of the governorate of Axel Kicillof. In recent weeks, and before there was talk of his properties in the South, even Cristina Kirchner crossed it publicly when she spoke of insecurity in the Buenos Aires suburbs. He did not take it for granted. “It’s music to my ears,” he said. For Berni, the account is simple: Cristina in her speech demanded more gendarmes in the Province and the gendarmes depend on the Minister of National Security, Aníbal Fernández. Ergo: the claim was for Hannibal. A strange argument.
Berni screwed
One factor that Berni takes into account for his survival is that, when the Frente de Todos lost the election in 2021 and Cristina asked Kicillof to get his hands on his Cabinet, the governor ended up giving in and removing Carlos Bianco, his most trusted official. That is to say that when CFK asks for changes to be made, they end up being carried out. And for now he didn’t ask for Berni’s head. He knows, like Kicillof, that his heavy-handed Sheriff speech has followers and is an electoral asset on the provincial lists if necessary. Kirchnerism does not have too many characters with that profile, incorrect but also profitable.
But equation works when the Sherrif in question is reputed to be honest and incorruptible. And at this point, belatedly declared properties in Patagonia are a dangerous novelty.
His wife also has no convincing way to explain his prosperity because, like Berni, he does not come from a wealthy family. He was born in the town of Las Flores, in the province of Buenos Aires, and after finishing high school in his hometown, he studied law at the University of Buenos Aires. Before turning 30, she met Berni, with whom she became a girlfriend. After working with him on the Ministry of Security, in the Undersecretariat for Citizen Participationa, was a provincial senator.
Berni is one of the few in the ruling party who have known Cristina since the 1980s. Despite this level of trust, he still treats CFK as “you”. Even in a shouting match like the one they had last year in the Senate, when Berni claimed that he had not allowed him to participate in the PASO in the second electoral section of the province of Buenos Aires, which includes the town of Zárate, where He has his country house.
In that election, as a counter-offer, CFK had given third place on the list to Agustina Propato, but the makers of the lists forgot that this position had to be for a candidate from Sergio Massa. In the end, Propato finished in fifth place. The rest of the story is known: the day of the electoral defeat, Berni almost ended up punching Máximo K in La Plata.
So far, the strategy of being a tough has worked for Berni: he remains in the center of the scene, remains in his position and increases his wealth. All gain.
