Federal prosecutors in Argentina have asked a court to order the seizure of more than 140 properties and other assets belonging to former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and disgraced businessmen Lázaro Báez due to their corruption convictions.
Prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola on Thursday asked Federal Oral Court No. 2 to authorise their request, which includes an apartment flat in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, where the ex-president currently resides as she serves a jail sentence under house arrest.
The request was confirmed to local news agencies by judicial sources.
“We request the seizure of 141 properties – 13 belonging to companies owned by the Kirchner family and 128 to companies linked to Lázaro Báez; 46 vehicles; US$4,664,000 from a safety deposit box in the name of Florencia Kirchner; US$992,134 from a savings account at Banco Galicia; and 53,280.24 pesos,” the prosecutors wrote in their request.
“The convicted individuals – ordered to deposit the sum of 684,990,350,139.86 pesos for colossal fraud against the public administration – have not deposited a single peso, despite the deadline having expired months ago,” they argue.
According to the prosecutors’ submission, both Fernández de Kirchner and Báez “have been delaying the recovery of assets ordered by a final court ruling.”
“The resistance they are demonstrating shows their complete lack of remorse and constitutes an affront to the final judgment and to the principle of equality before the law,” they added.
The convictions stem from the so-called ‘Vialidad’ public works corruption case, which examined the awarding of road-construction contracts in Santa Cruz Province between 2003 and 2015.
Prosecutors alleged that, during her presidency, Fernández de Kirchner and her administration directed an overwhelming majority of state-funded infrastructure contracts to companies controlled by Báez, a businessman with no prior experience in construction, at inflated prices and with significant irregularities in bidding procedures.
The scheme was said to have funnelled vast sums of public funds to Báez’s firms. Many of the works were not completed, resulting in significant losses to the public purse.
After a lengthy oral trial, Federal Oral Court No. 2 convicted both Fernández de Kirchner and Báez in December 2022 of fraudulent administration of public funds in connection with that scheme. The ruling, confirmed by the Federal Cassation Court in 2024, upheld sentences of six years’ imprisonment and lifelong disqualification from holding public office for Fernández de Kirchner and corresponding penalties for Báez and several co-defendants.
Argentina’s Supreme Court confirmed the convictions in June 2025. She began serving her sentence under house arrest soon after.
At the tail-end of last year it emerged that Argentina’s Supreme Court would be responsible for administering and auctioning off the seized assets of the former president and her co-defendants.
The decision covers 122 properties identified by the Public Prosecutor’s Office as instruments or proceeds of the defendants’ crimes, or assets acquired during the period in which the fraudulent scheme took place, between May 2003 and December 2015.
The original amount set for confiscation was 84.835 billion pesos, but it was updated to 684.990 billion pesos by court-appointed accountants, based on technical criteria ratified by the Supreme Court.
– TIMES/NA
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