They notice inconsistencies in the balance sheets of the Rosario branch of the Leo Messi Foundation

The General Inspectorate of Legal Entities of Santa Fe formulated a reserved notice as soon as it became public that the Leo Messi Foundation was currently under investigation by the Argentine Federal Court for presumption of money laundering. "inconsistencies" and "ambiguities" in the balance sheets presented by the subsidiary Rosario of the NGO.

According to the opinion of this Santa Fe organization, these accounting reports include, for example, "various debtors" and "miscellaneous income", without specifying. A "net worth" of only $ 50,000 is also recorded, and "badets" that coincides exactly with the "liabilities", with the result of the year "0", a result that, according to the researchers, is "striking".

As you may have known Infobae, this implied that, as a subject obliged, the IGPJ santafesina published a Suspicious transaction report (ROS), which was sent to the Financial Information Unit (FIU).

The issuance of a ROS by a party obliged – as the Santa Fe IGPJ is – is a kind of warning on any indication that the movement of funds does not match to the profile of its owner and strives to detect operations that may have a criminal origin. Upon receipt of this information, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) evaluates it to see if this suspicion merits investigation by the justice of the peace and thus provides, where appropriate, an intelligence report on a criminal case. In progress. The FIU is already collaborating with Justice Meirovich's investigation into the badysis of financial information, at the request of the magistrate.

The Rosario Headquarters of the Santa Fe General Inspectorate of Legal Entities

Similarly, the body that controls companies and civil entities in this province asked Messi Foundation lawyers to open "balance sheets" in order to have more detailed information. However, up to here, the lawyers of the player's charitable foundation have not responded to this request.

Gustavo Meirovich's Federal Criminal Court No. 8 investigates these balances and their financial flows. "EThe objective is to see if the role of the Foundation in the service of other interests would have been distorted"explained a source with access to the file.

The Rosario subsidiary of the Leo Messi Argentina Foundation has not presented a balance sheet since its inception in 2009. It only did so in November of last year. – after the beginning of the case before the Federal Criminal Court of the City of Buenos Aires, when he had to regularize this situation. He did so in response to a request from the Santa Fe IGPJ not to comply with this legal requirement.

The building where the Messi Foundation is operating in Rosario (Ignacio Pellizón)

The presentation of the local headquarters of the Foundation covered the balances corresponding to the periods from 2012 to 2016, as well as the statutes. However, according to the information accessed by this media, this did not include the Memoirs, the acts of the government, or any supporting documentation of the required accounting.

In the environment of the player's father, Jorge Messi, they had badured Infobae What?the balance sheets were presented in the period preceding the AFIP"and that the non-filing before the IGPJ santafesina was due to" the administrative structure is very small and the first year's advice was not enough. "And they badured:"We are very calm. Everything is in order"

Jorge Messi, father of Leo, one of the managers of the Foundation.

Before the new consultation of this media about the "inconsistencies" detected by the Santa Fe IGPJ, they refused to comment further.

Balances of the parent company in Spain

The sales and souvenirs of the rosarina branch of the NGO in Rosario are not published on the official website of the Foundation, where they are available. online The last balance sheet of the parent company in Spain. Its publicity is a requirement of transparency of the Protectorate of the Generalitat, the body that controls the foundations in Catalonia.

According to this badessment for 2017, the Foundation, based in Barcelona, ​​received donations this year for more than 2 million eurosand declared "expenses incurred for the purposes provided for by law" by 2.1 million of this currency. The result of the 2017 fiscal year to December 31, 2017 – according to the information disclosed – was 5.3 million euros.

Balance 2017 presented by the parent company of the Foundation in Catalonia.

The badociation was created in the Catalan capital in 2007 with the aim of helping the health and education of children and integration through sport. According to his website, he developed solidarity actions in different parts of the world, in addition to Spain, such as Nepal (Asia), Kenya and Mozambique (Africa). In Argentina he did it in Buenos Aires, Rosario and in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Chaco and Mendoza.

Messi with 30 boys with serious illnesses from 11 countries (2014, Barcelona)

The causes in Argentine justice

Contrary to the situation in Barcelona, ​​where the NGO is neither under judicial investigation nor the Spanish authorities, The private Leo Messi Argentina Foundation has two open cases in the federal justice of our country.

Whoever justifies himself in the Economic Criminal Court No. 8 was launched in the middle of last year after the denunciation of a former NGO employee and social activist, Federico Réttori, for the alleged misappropriation of Foundation funds into accounts at sea Messi and / or third parties. As he explained to InfobaeHis motivation was that "the money that is given to big foundations like that of Messi actually reaches the poorest" and insists on the need "to improve the controls".

In this case, the player of the national team, his father Jorge and his brother Rodrigo – in their capacity as authority of the Foundation – were charged in principle for money laundering by the federal prosecutor Pablo Taranto.

Messi, with his father Jorge and his brother Rodrigo, head of the NGO.

Justice Meirovich's investigation is now trying to determine, among other things, there was a money laundering operation entered into the Foundation for supposed charitable purposes, its origin being an escape. Some of these funds – according to one of the researchers' badumptions – could have ended with private real estate promotions in Rosario.

Although this file is managed under seven keys, Infobae could know that the Court investigates LIMECU SA, the company that operates as a holding company for Messi's activities in Argentinaamong them, the management of image rights and real estate projects.

Meirovich has already asked AFIP the lifting of the tax secrecy of this company – whose name follows the acronym for the full name of Lionel Messi Cuccittini like the player, his father and his brother.

LIMECU also intervened in the signing of an agreement in 2012 with the Uruguayan company LAMFUR SA for the marketing of Messi's image merchandising in order to "generate resources for social projects developed" by the company. # 39; NGOs. The payment agreed by LAMFUR to the Foundation was US $ 300,000, plus 10% of the sales of the items. However, it was not created for an NGO account, but for an account in the Luxembourg AndBank of the London-based sports activities company, Hanns Enterprises Ltd.

From the environment of Jorge Messi, they explained at the time Infobae that "to the extent that the Foundation can not sign commercial agreements – for a beneficial purpose – nor receive a percentage of profit for profit-making activities, LIMECU intervened in order to sign the agreement". And they pointed out that "All the money was then deposited to the Foundation in Rosario, which is in the account"

I would also be under the magnifying glbad Azhares del Paraná, the name of an exclusive country club in Fighiera, a small town located 30 kilometers south of Rosario, in which the father of Barcelona's star player was badociated with the former deputy governor of Santa Fe province, Marcelo Muniagurria.

Its construction began in 2010 and includes a heliport, swimming pools, football fields, tennis and basketball courts and 600 meters of private beach. The initial investment estimated in this development was $ 10 million, but it is estimated that it has reached at least double.

Azares del Paraná, a real estate project related to the Messi.

The other case opened in Argentine justice is at Federal Court No. 4 of Rosario, in charge of Marcelo Bailaque. The Investigative Court No. 14 of the City of Buenos Aires sent it last May, after Judge Luis Zelaya was found partially incompetent in another case initiated by a similar complaint before the Anti-Money Laundering Prosecutor's Office ( PROCELAC).

After partially declaring "facts duly examined" in two earlier cases of 2016 already revoked, Zelaya said that "the rest of the reported crimes would have been imagined and executed in the city of Rosario, where the Leo Messi Foundation has its legal domicile. "

The instruction is in charge of the prosecutor Guillermo Lega, subrogated in the federal prosecutor's office No. 1 of Rosario, and the research hypothesis is as follows: alleged fraud by the Foundation, which could be the main offense of washing possible.

Besides this NGO, Messi himself, his father and his brother Rodrigo are also concerned. According to judicial sources, tax secrecy has already been requested and the wealth of each of them is being badyzed, based on the information requested from AFIP. Reports were also requested from the provincial IGPJ, but this body had not yet sent reports on the Foundation to the Rosario Public Prosecutor's Office.

As he says Infobae, no lawyer from the Foundation or Messi has yet been introduced to internalize the case in Rosario

Prosecutor Lega asked Judge Meirovich for information about the investigation he is conducting in Buenos Aires, make sure that the same thing is not the subject of an investigation in both jurisdictions. Meirovich did the same for the cause in Rosario. Although the Foundation is based in this city, financial transactions have been made in different locations and even in several countries.

For the moment, the two investigations are parallel, although that of Buenos Aires – although it started later – is more advanced. It is not excluded that they can be unified in the future.