Banks and businesses raided over import scams

Following legal complaints from Customs, 38 raids were carried out today in Buenos Aires City, San Isidro, and Mar del Plata

By Valen Iricibar and Estefanía Pozzo

Customs has filed legal complaints against five companies for import scams, carrying out 38 raids in banks and businesses today across Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in which two people were arrested. 

The companies allegedly engaged in arbitrage by charging for inexistent imports at the official foreign exchange rate which, according to Customs, lead to an estimated loss of “at least” US$5.5 million.

 “I’ll simplify in a very colloquial way: they’re fake importers, sham portfolios which faked SIMIS, the earlier tools we used to import, with sham documentation, sham invoices, sham customs forms to send money abroad without importing anything,” said Guillermo Michel, head of Customs, in a press conference. 

Customs is accusing the companies of forging documents in order to earn dollars at the cheaper foreign exchange rate provided by the Central Bank, which is low on international reserves, in order to then sell them at a higher rate and keep the difference. Michel explained that one of the firms was a real business that was faking imports while the other four were ghost companies with no economic activity at all. 

Today’s official government communiqué mentioned 23 raids but sources close to the matter told the Herald that a total of 38 raids were carried out in banks and companies. Four happened in the city of Mar del Plata, one in the Buenos Aires district of San Isidro, and the rest in Buenos Aires City.

Supervielle, one of the banks raided today, told the Herald that it had already been searched on May 9 and since then “the bank has made itself available for the investigation and, on this occasion, we’ve been told that what is being asked for is further information.”

The names of the companies have not been made public yet. The Herald reached out to two other banks who confirmed their involvement but did not want to comment directly on the matter.

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“We’re talking about an illicit organization. We have detained an accountant and a disloyal bank employee, who offered these services as fake managers for the sham companies to take dollars abroad — particularly in Miami accounts, making US$5.5 million,” Michel said.

He also said that the companies exploited the weaknesses of Customs’ old import authorization tool, SIMI, and contended that its new system SIRA cross-references databases in such a way that this type of fraud would not be possible.

According to a communiqué from Customs, the government has requested help from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) regarding those bank accounts in Miami and to further investigate the extent of the operation.

“The accountant would be the ringleader,” said Carlos Ñamandú, a federal crimes commissioner who said that the investigation began six months ago. “Plus, in one of the raids in the San Miguel district, we confiscated five weapons, three rifles, and two automatic pistols as well as a handgun. We’re investigating where they came from.” 

The cases will be tried in the 9th National Economic Criminal Court, currently led by Judge Marcelo Aguinsky, and the judiciary has summoned 13 financial entities to testify.

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