Federal Justice, in charge of the surrogate judge Luis Armella, This Tuesday, he ordered a series of raids in the framework of the case known as South Financewhich included the AFA headquarters, its property in Ezeiza and operations in 17 Argentine soccer clubs. The judge ordered the procedures with the support of the Federal Police and the DGI, in an investigation that seeks documentation on sponsorship contracts, loans and financial movements linked to the financial company that is under scrutiny.
The list of institutions reached by the court orders included the AFA and its Buenos Aires property, in addition to clubs such as Racing, Independiente, San Lorenzo, Argentinos Juniors, Banfield, Barracas Central, Platense, Los Andes, Temperley, Brown de Adrogué, Deportivo Morón, Excursionistas, Club Armenio, Acassuso, Defensores de Glew and Club Atlético Recreativo Estrella del Sur, among other linked addresses. The reporters who covered the operations detailed 33 raids ordered by Armella.
The fiscal hypothesis that motivated the procedures was explained by the federal prosecutor Cecilia Incardona before the court: the investigation seeks “documentation linked to financial movements, sponsorship contracts and loans related to the company”, and the prosecution stated that “there is a link between the alleged illicit activity carried out by the authorities of the Banfield Club” and related legal entities that would have used payment services to “place illicit profits.” This line of research is central to understanding why documentation was sought in so many institutional locations.
In response to the operations, some clubs and leaders came out to give public explanations. In the case of Banfield, the president Matías Mariotto He denied links with Sur Finanzas and stated that the investigation is mixing facts from different administrations: “From the experience I have, I assure you that they are mixing everything,” he declared in his presentation to the press when responding to the procedures at the club headquarters, recalling that his entry as head of the entity occurred this year. Judicial sources, on the other hand, indicated that the file is based on previous operations and movements that the federal Public Ministry seeks to trace.
So far, the investigation has mentioned the financial company linked to people close to Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia and institutional football operators, such as the treasurer Pablo Toviggino. That is why the diligence included, in addition to clubs, private homes and commercial offices where contracts and payment services would have been managed.
To understand “who manages” the raided clubs, the investigation turns to the board of directors and the formal authorities of each entity. In First Division and promotion clubs there are, in most cases, presidents and board of directors who appear in official records and on institutional sites: for example, Racing Club appears under the presidency of Diego Milito; Central Barracks figure with Matias Tapia as president; Independent has Nestor Grindetti as president; and San Lorenzo returned to Marcelo Moretti in the management of the club, according to official pages and recent communications.
Argentinos Juniors has as its main leader Cristian Malaspinaa position from which he also integrates spaces in the AFA, while Banfield confirmed to Mariotto as its highest authority and issued institutional public communications to remove the current leadership from accusations made about operations from previous years. This documentary verification comes both from the clubs’ sites and from journalistic articles that covered the official reactions.
The sources consulted agree that the judicial investigation aims to track the flow of money between a payment services company, Sur Finanzas, and the sports entities. Until now, the compromised clubs reported that the raids included the seizure of accounting documentation and electronic devices. The Armella court and the prosecutor’s office in charge have not anticipated precautionary measures against leaders who appear in the investigation. Judicial spokespersons indicated that the immediate objective is to form a documentary map that allows determining whether there were money laundering maneuvers through contracts, trusts and payment services.
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