La Nación: tax havens and money laundering
The Saguier family, majority shareholder in the La Nación newspaper since the 1990s, is the subject of numerous court cases which are trying to determine the legality of the origen of those funds used in the transaction which left the Mitres outside of the management of the media outlet founded by Bartolomé Mitre; the composition of the groups which participate in the controlling companies; and profit declarations.
The first person to investigate the business dealings of the clan led by brothers Alejandro and Julio was federal judge María Servini de Cubría, who was in charge of a case against the Saguiers for alleged money laundering. The magistrate even ordered a raid on the newspaper headquarters in search of information.
In that investigation, Servini tried to discover the origin of the funds used by the family to buy the newspaper, since according to tax data not one of the Saguiers had enough money to carry out the lucrative operation.
But in 2005, Court II of the Federal Chamber threw out Servini de Cubría’s work and cleared those accused. The judge had attempted to unravel the operation which ended with the purchase of the newspaper and which included the formation in the Cayman Islands – a tax haven – of the MNMS (Matilde Noble Mitre de Saguier) Holding and Barton Corp companies, the latter entrusted with contributing capital in order to pay off the credit line used by the Saguiers in buying the newspaper.
Another investigation linked to the Saguiers links them to tax evasion maneuvers. In the year 2000 the Federal Public Incomes Administration detected that Matilde Noble Mitre de Saguier held 2 million pesos in a tax haven which had not been declared in Argentina.
Federal judge Javier López Biscayart also accused Noble’s son Alejandro for the action, considering him responsible for an evasion calculated to be worth 822,000 pesos.
The Saguier surname was not new to López Biscayart. In 1997 he had already investigated the family for another case of alleged evasion, but the courts did not proceed correctly with the accusation and the case was shelved. If it had succeeded, the accused Saguiers could have been sentenced to up to nine years in prison.
