- According to an Argentine Congressional committee preliminary
report, over 60 billion US dollars fled from Argentina between 1992 and
2001. Worse even, in spite of current legislation the report indicates
that most of the money managed to evade Central Bank and other financial
and tax institutions controls, while the banking system wasnât particularly
willing to collaborate with the investigation.
-
- The multi-party Special Investigating Committee has been
working for over a year in the report trying to determine how such a huge
volume of money left Argentina particularly in 2001 when the situation
blew out of all normal proportions and finished with the collapse and resignation
of the President De la Ra administration.
-
- In 2001 according to Congressional figures, 14, 977 billion
US dollars fled from Argentina, but Central Bank figures are more modest,
12,5 billion US dollars. The Committee worked with data supplied by 58
resident banks in Argentina, equivalent to 70% of the financial system
assets.
-
- The report was able to determine that in just one day,
November 30, 2001, just a few hours after a freeze on all banking assets
was decreed, 143 million US dollars in 857 different operations left the
Argentina.
-
- Although during most of the nineties the free movement
of capital was not illegal in Argentina, the report found out that there
was virtually no checking, by financial, taxing institutions or the Central
Bank, of the legality or illegality of the money transfers. The 'know your
client' policy, that has become a world banking standard, apparently only
existed in paper given the 'efficiency' of the system established by different
institutions to oil the way for the fleeing money, much of it apparently
tax evasion.
-
- The Congressional report points out that in spite of
strict regulations regarding money laundering and other illicit activities,
banks virtually did not report suspicious transactions and the Argentine
Central Bank didnât pursue them, even when entitled and forced to
do so.
-
- Furthermore the Central Bank facilitated the financial
system access to foreign credit ãgenerating a greater fragility
and exposure, while not demanding banks and other institutions to comply
with regulationsä, reads the report.
-
- ãWhen we began investigating over a year ago,
a majority of banks at the beginning refused to collaborate alleging confidentiality
of the information involved, and we had to request the Treasury Secretary
to interveneä, recalls one of the members of the Committee.
-
- Another extraordinary finding was that at least a third
of transactions in 2001 involving sending money overseas, were done in
a manner that made identification by taxing authorities virtually impossible.
-
- "We discovered that some transfers were done using
a dead personâs names and even 14 year old minors", said Cesar
Di Cola president of the investigating committee.
-
-
- MERCOPRESS is a news agency concentrating in Mercosur
countries
- which operates from Montevideo, Uruguay, and includes
in its
- area of influence the South Atlantic and insular territories.
-
- E-mail: <mailto:merco@mercopress.com>merco@mercopress.com
|