Three officials sacked after ADECUA swindle

The government yesterday officially sacked three officials involved in an alleged swindle in cahoots with consumer defence insitutions and banks, although their specific role in the scam has not yet been confirmed.

The development stemmed from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s speech at Government House on Monday, in which she cited the act of fraud to support her desire to “democratize the justice system,” also slamming deceptive consumer defence institutions and inadvertently officials in her own administration.

The discharged Kirchnerites are Aerolíneas Argentinas Vice-President, Intercargo controller and La Cámpora activist Juan de Dios Cincunegui, the Environment and Sustainable Development Secretariat’s Environmental Control Director, Luis Romiti, and Eduardo Baeza, Senator Nancy Parrilli’s advisor.

Their dismissal was announced in two decrees in the Official Gazette yesterday, while the government’s Deputy-Secretary of Consumer Defence, María Lucila Colombo boldly affirmed: “Yesterday it became known that some of the lawyers” linked to the alleged swindle “were employed within government. Today they are gone.”

The President accused the Consumer and User Defence Association (ADECUA) of arranging a “swindle” in connivance with a judge, 27 lawyers and six banks, alleging they prevented 367 million pesos of compensation from reaching over 1.7 million clients who had claimed to have been charged undue commission by the banks.

Colombo revealed the investigation had established that ADECUA, an NGO, and its lawyers had settled in the case in a way that “disfavoured the consumers,” revealing that the lawyers received commissions ten times the sum awarded to the plaintiffs.

Also found to have illicitly benefited from the trial is Osvaldo Riopedre, the ADECUA chief-executive, who allegedly charged five million pesos for having been a legal representative in the supposed prosecution.

Herald with DyN, Ambito.com