[2] The Financial Action Task Force removed Argentina from its "gray list" in October 2014, noting significant progress made by the country in improving its legislation and procedures against money laundering and illicit financing.
"[13] According to Transparency International, Argentina has sufficient legislation and institutions dedicated to the prosecution of corruption in the public sector, but enforcement is highly inadequate, with the result that "impunity continues to trump integrity.
In August 1888, however, Baring Brothers was unable to place £10 million of shares and debentures in Buenos Aires Water Supply & Drainage Company,[17] a firm that was "denounced as a feeding trough for corrupt politicians and rapacious foreign capitalists.
Through a policy known as "Unicato," Juárez Celman, who opposed universal suffrage and considered it to be always an error "to consult the people," assumed total power in Argentina, bringing together the forces of business and politics in ways that enabled both to profit at the expense of the state treasury.
An English newspaper of the time is quoted as describing Argentine corruption as follows: "Today there are dozens of men in government who are publicly accused of malpractice, who in any civilized country would be quickly punished with imprisonment, and yet none of them have been brought to justice.
[20] The period between 1930 and 1943, starting when General José Félix Uriburu came to power in the 1930 coup, was known as the Infamous Decade owing to the high degree of corruption involving business, and both the ruling Concordance party and its opponents.
"[21] Another widely reported case at the time was that of the President (Speaker) of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, Juan Kaiser, who resigned in 1940 following revelations that he had profited from the sale of 23 hectares (57 acres) of Army land in the upscale Buenos Aires suburb of El Palomar.
[30] Some Triple A squad leaders – notably Rodolfo Almirón, Aníbal Gordon, and Raúl Guglielminetti – perpetrated numerous high-profile ransom kidnappings in subsequent years with the cooperation of both criminal gangs such as the Puccio family and rogue elements in the police and intelligence services.
The Economy Minister during most of the dictatorship, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, advanced twin anti-labor and financial deregulation policies that interrupted industrial development and upward social mobility while sharply increasing the nation's debt burden.
Ambassador to Argentina, Terence Todman, informed the Argentine government in 1990 that Menem advisor and in-law Emir Yoma had solicited a bribe from Swift, the U.S. meat packing firm, it led to a scandal known as Swiftgate.
[56][57][58] A cocaine trafficking operation revealed in 1991 involved the shipment of large sums of drug money from New York City to Argentina, where it was laundered through the purchase of real estate, jewelry, or businesses, or diverted to Uruguay.
[1] Cavallo accused businessman Alfredo Yabrán in 1995 of being a sort of mafia boss who enjoyed political and judicial protection, who covertly ran several major transport and security companies including Correo OCA (which handled 30% of the Argentine postal market), and whose firms were involved in drugs and weapons trafficking and money laundering.
The companies also imported large quantities of inputs and goods produced by associated firms, contracting heavy trade debts in dollars while violating a law that required them to prioritize Argentine products when making purchases.
In 1998, arrest warrants were issued for four former IBM executives and Judge Angelo Bagnasco charged ten people with crimes, including a former president of Banco de la Nación and IBM-Argentina's former CEO and former COO.
[76] The New York Times noted in 1996 that six months after the initial revelations, the IBM scandal was "still front page news in Argentina, as new disclosures emerge almost weekly, tainting the computer giant's reputation for honesty here.
[80] In 2012, Menem was ordered to stand trial for obstruction of justice in an investigation of a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in which 85 people died; he was accused of covering up evidence connecting the attack to Hezbollah and Iran.
Another case with foreign origins is that of Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a self-identified member of the entourage of Hugo Chávez, who arrived in Argentina in August 2007 on a private flight paid for by Argentine and Venezuelan state officials.
[95] Subpoenaed by Judge Federico Faggionato Márquez, de Narváez initially announced he would resign from Congress, but later recanted, claiming a ranch hand in his employ used his phone to place the calls in question.
[98] Another significant case – failure on the part of the La Rural-Ogden group (of which de Narváez is a partner) to repay a US$106 million loan from the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires – expired via statute of limitations in 2013.
The investigation focused on the purchase and resale, at massive profits, of large tracts of public land by nearly fifty top level politicians and businesspeople during Néstor Mendez's final years as the mayor of El Calafate, from 1995 to 2007.
Granted $45m of public funds to build housing for the poor, the group hired Meldorek, a company that was owned by Sergio Schoklender, who had been imprisoned for 14 years for murdering his parents, and that, according to other contractors, "was charging twice the market rate for homebuilding."
"If the football federation launders money, if 13,000 police officers can be arrested for crimes, and if 60% of Argentines in a national survey believe they can pay law enforcement officials to avoid infractions, this society's problems might run deeper than mere technocratic adjustment.
[114] At one point, the government chose to blunt the impact of Lanata's show by scheduling evening matches between two very popular soccer teams, Boca Juniors and River Plate, directly opposite the Sunday-night program.
[11] In a December 2013 editorial triggered by Argentina's poor performance in that year's corruption ratings by Transparency International, the editors of La Nación stated that the Argentine government "encourages lying, concealment and illegality."
[94] As an example of Argentine political corruption, Brink Lindsey of The Wall Street Journal has noted that Tucumán Province's public sector has been used almost exclusively to enrich politicians and fund patronage jobs.
There is an insufficient degree of transparency and accountability, and although recently passed legislation forbids donations by companies to political campaigns, there are ways for businesses to skirt the law and cover non-campaign expenses by politicians and parties.
"[151] "A giant wave of peaceful protesters took to the streets of Argentina," reported The Guardian, "banging spoons against kitchen pots, in a rally that attracted even larger crowds than a similar mass demonstration in November against corruption, inflation and insecurity under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner."
Organized via Facebook and Twitter, the rally "was fuelled by anger against judicial overhaul being pushed through Congress that could give the government virtual control of the courts" and came in the wake of "allegations that businessmen laundered tens of millions of euros obtained from public work contracts through offshore accounts.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported in 2011 that "official corruption in Argentina worries the U.S., whose embassy in Buenos Aires sent to the State Department over a hundred confidential dispatches over several years warning about the fragility of the judicial system in the South American country and about the impunity of those who commit crimes.
Among the cases in which Garrido had been involved were Guillermo Moreno alleged manipulation of the Argentine statistical agency, INDEC; the Skanska scandal wherein the company was billing false invoice; a case of a literal bag of cash being discovered in the office of Felisa Miceli; the allegations of Néstor Kirchner's and Daniel Marx's illicit enrichment; a contract for electrical cable installations being one by a company with close ties to the Kirchners; and contracts for rail repair being won by Ricardo Jaime, the Transport Secretary.