Argentina's presidential planes cited in Machado investigation case file
In the same US court document that details the US$ 200,000-payment made by Federico 'Fred' Machado to José Luis Espert, there is a transaction mentioning official Argentine aircraft Tango 01 and Tango 04.
Aeroplanes Tango 01 and Tango 04, used by presidents and other officials from the Argentine Executive Branch, might be linked to the scandal which led José Luis Espert to give up his deputy candidacy for La Libertad Avanza.
The aircraft is mentioned in the same banking document containing the US$ 200,000 transfer by businessman Federico “Fred” Machado to the economist, as revealed by an article by journalist Sebastián Lacunza published in ElDiarioAr.
There are transactions to the amount of US$2.65 million in the Aircrafts Guarantee Corporation trust, based in Texas, USA. The trust belongs to US citizen Debra Lynn Mercer-Erwin, considered to be Machado’s partner by Texas prosecutors who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud.
According to a record of operations from Bank of America, attached to the case file in which Machado is investigated for alleged drug-trafficking and money-laundering, on three dates in 2016 – June 14, June 23, and July 6 – money was transferred to different accounts referencing aeroplanes Tango 01 and Tango 04.
Back then, during the first year of Mauricio Macri’s administration, Tango 01 was not in use, raising further questions about the mysterious payments.
The case file indicates that companies America Core Aviation, based in Delaware, and Sunrise Investors or the Sunrise Company, based in California, transferred money on those dates via the same trust used by Machado in his transfer to Espert. In the banking record, there is a column entitled “orig to bene instr,” which may be linked to the beneficiary of the remittance. That column mentions the Argentine aeroplanes.
In the payments by America Core Aviation, on June 14, and July 6, 2016, which totalled US$1.65 million, the ledger reads “Argentina Boeings Tango 01 and Tango 04,” reports Lacunza.
In the transaction dated June 23, involving Sunrise Investors, the writing is even more cryptic: “ref escrow agreement Boeing MSN26456 & 25487 Argentine registration T-04 AND T-01.”
America Core Aviation is based in Delaware, a state renowned for being a tax haven in the United States.
The other firm, Sunrise Investors or the Sunrise Company, is a real-estate development company based in California. The circuit of transactions also involved JPMorgan Chase Bank, cryptocurrency platform OKX and NVX Capital, a financial company from Monterrey, Mexico.
– TIMES/PERFIL