Transparency International Transparent Report on Argentina

Argentina is the third country with the largest number of orders sent to Brazil to access evidence of crimes committed by Odebrecht throughout Latin America. But with one exception: the Argentineans have not fulfilled their commitments and have shown, in practice,
according to a survey of Lava Jato's progress throughout the hemisphere that Transparency International has been developing for months and released today.

Peru, with 68 requests for cooperation, and Panama (18 requests) are the two Latin American countries over Argentina for the number of requests made to the Brazilian authorities to obtain the denunciations and other Lava Jato tests out of a total of 118 orders received by Brazil from across the hemisphere over the past two years. That's since the secret was lifted on the material, June 1, 2017.

Argentine prosecutors submitted 12 cooperation requests, including 10 in 2017 and the other two last year. They requested copies of the evidence as well as a statement from several Brazilian suspects involved in the corruption in Odebrecht. Argentina is one of the countries with which Brazil is negotiating the creation of a joint investigation team.

At the opposite extreme, Venezuela and Guatemala are the countries of Latin America that have shown the least interest in accessing evidence committing their officials. They submitted a single request for cooperation each, followed by the Dominican Republic with three.

"The progress of the work of the bodies investigating major corruption cases involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in Latin America is very discordant and globally inadequate," warned Transparency International, by broadcasting the survey that she has developed with the portal. Jota and the company Digesto, from Brazil, to which he accepted
THE NATION.

Transparencia concluded that the obvious or overlapping disinterest of some countries in gaining access to the evidence that puts Brazil to sleep "reveals a very low level of investigation and, as a result, a real risk of impunity for the serious crimes revealed by the operation. Lava Jato, in these countries "

In this respect, Argentina's behavior has exceptional characteristics, said Transparency International senior consultant Fabiano Angelico,
THE NATION. "On the one hand, Argentina is the third country with the largest number of Brazil's requests for collaboration, but when Brazilian officials are consulted, they report that relations with Argentina are not not good, because their officials do not collaborate with ongoing investigations., or respect the agreed word, "he said.

One of the few public shortcuts between the two countries occurred on the 13th of this month, when it appeared in the Brazilian press that Attorney General Raquel Dodge had sent a report at the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in which she explained the differences. He called it "stumbling on international legal cooperation".

Dodge detailed the difficulties faced by its prosecutors to obtain Argentine cooperation since May 2016 as part of the investigation into the sale of Petrobras oil company shares in Transener to the Cordoba Electroingeniería company, with former ministers Julio of Vido and Roberto Dromi. businessman Gerardo Ferreyra as alleged protagonists of corruption.

According to the prosecutor, the Argentine commitments have reached such a point that the requests for cooperation sent by the Brazilian justice in Buenos Aires have been delayed or treated with means avoiding the advance of the investigation in Brazil until it requires his partial deposit.

But if this happens with the documents that Brazil is asking Argentina, a similar dynamic is repeated when the Argentines ask for cooperation from Brazil. Documents available since June 2017 have not yet reached the hands of judges and prosecutors

Commodore Py

. According to the Brazilians, the Argentineans do not show a real interest to access this material. According to the Argentineans, the laws are incompatible and the Brazilians demand a quasi-commitment of impunity in favor of their nationals.

What precious material for Argentina is in Brazil since June 2017? According to the Transparency International survey, this report contains evidence of bribes paid to Argentine and Brazilian officials for Odebrecht and its consortia to win three public works projects in Argentina for approximately 2200 euros. Millions of Dollars: The Burial of the Sarmiento Train and
the construction for Aysa of a water purification station in the city of Paraná de las Palmas.

"Completed five years after the start of Lava Jato, we can say that we have learned some lessons," said Angelic. "One of them is that international cooperation is crucial in this type of research, and what Switzerland brought to Brazil in the first phase of Lava Jato, for example, was decisive. the same role in front of other Latin American countries.If prosecutors all over Latin America really want to investigate, they should go to Brazil. "