Football, escape and wash | A plot that goes from Argentina to Mexico. Raids on AFA, Racing and Independiente

The airport security police (PSA) had to break down the door. Nobody answered from 9 football, the company of former Uruguayan player and representative Uriel Pérez Jaurena. Shortly after, his lawyer, Eduardo Alberto Martins, appeared on the 9th floor of Avenida del Libertador 650, Vicente López. The simultaneous operation with five others in the AFA and the clubs Racing, Independiente, Gimnasia and Esgrima La Plata and Unión gave a worrying result. In addition to the documents seized, a 9 millimeter pistol with two projectiles on a desk and without the proper papers. The day after the raid, the office owner traveled to the United States with his family. San Isidro Federal Prosecutor Rodolfo Fernando Domínguez accuses him of tax evasion and money laundering. The judicial investigation is progressing into alleged crimes committed in four countries: Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil. “We put the puzzle together with all the pieces scattered around and that will depend a lot on what we find in the computers,” he said. Page 12 a source that closely follows the subject. Managers and footballers have also been implicated in the case entitled “NN s / violation of law 24769 and article 303”. The process could become a before and after which exposes the opacity of a market where few win at the expense of many. And when they win, they get rich in no time.

Pérez Jaurena is a 45-year-old former striker. Itinerant, he played for clubs in Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Bolivia and Argentina (Colón and Belgrano, among others). When he left his career, he devoted himself to representing footballers and some isolated coaches. The vast majority are Argentines and among the best known are Enzo Fernández de River, Federico Mancuello de Vélez, Domingo Blanco and Andrés Roa from Independent and Gabriel Ávalos from Argentinos Juniors.

The means of Mexico and our country connect it commercially with Christian Bragarnik. But the only repeating fact is that the two would have teamed up to manage the professional staff of Ferro where the owner of the Spanish club Elche invested money. TO Perez Jaurena credited with controlling the sportswear company Sport Lyon that you saw the team, in addition to Defense and Justice and Arsenal in the first division. But according to the board of directors of this textile company updated until 2019 that this media obtained at the IGJ, its president is Norberto José Arcolino and as deputy director is Víctor Antonio Contreras. There is no trace of the former player.

A report by Mexican journalist Amir Ibrahim, director of ElQuintanaRoo.mx titled The goal cartel and published on January 11 of this year, links the Uruguayan representative to a character with a dark past in Mexico: the American Greg Taylor. Another businessman who manages influential football players and coaches in this market. “When we talk about a “cartel” In this report, we do this to illustrate and we are not referring to a drug as it is commonly known, but to a perfectly structured organization, with managers and operators united for the same purpose: getting as much profit as possible and unclear, although this is in a way that is more than dirty, amoral and in many cases even illegal; in addition to fighting fiercely against its competition ”.

Taylor is said to have traveled to Argentina twice from Mexico, which proves nothing, but it would put him in the crosshairs of prosecutor Domínguez and judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado who ordered the raid on Vicente López’s modern glass building with room sports and swimming pool. The North American has been one of the owners of the Gallos Blancos de Querétaro, a first division club, since last year. He also owned the Atlantean.

Just as Ibrahim based his research on Taylor and the people around him at his businesses, another Mexican journalist, Ignacio Suárez of the Record site, wrote a detailed article titled Obscene affairs Last Wednesday where he underlined that in the legal operations of September 29 carried out in Buenos Aires “in all cases a player’s representative was indirectly or directly involved, his name: Uriel Pérez Jaurena”. Much of the evidence is to be found in the statement released by the AFA into the raid on its headquarters a week ago. He was required to provide information on footballers who have played or are playing in Mexico where each team can put nine foreigners in their starting lineup today. An amount that will gradually increase to seven during the 2022-2023 season. Gerardo Martino, the coach of the home team, has complained a lot about this foreign invasion that is fueling the business of representatives like Pérez Jaurena.

AFA says they kidnapped “copies of athlete transfer contracts Maximiliano Meza, Federico Mancuello, Emmanuel Gigliotti, Nicolás Sánchez, Jesús Méndez, Fernando Barrientos, Jonatan Maidana and Enrique Triverio; registration of representatives of said athletes; certificates of deposits made under the conditions of article 214 of the AFA’s general regulations; register of transfers abroad of said players during the years 2014/19 where the value of each transaction is indicated; any document proving that Uriel Pérez Jaurena exercises the ownership of the economic rights of footballers and any other documentation of interest to clarify the maneuvers denounced ”.

At the request of the prosecution, the players are accused of “Tax evasion and money laundering”; for the same crimes plus that of “Fraudulent administration” the leaders of the four clubs and the AFA who took part in the transfers; Pérez Jaurena, as previously stated, and “other persons who have fulfilled the role of representative of the footballers mentioned above, and any other person who may have intervened, collaborated or covered up the facts”.

The case was opened by an anonymous complaint that Procelac received, which also conducted its own investigation. Suárez published in his note – the first installment in a series that will continue – how the amount of illegally obtained profits would amount to “24 million 750 thousand dollars, only during the period from 2014 to 2019”. The same journalist agrees with the sources consulted by Page 12 on the compromised situation of Pérez Jaurena before the Argentine justice which continues to gather evidence to summon him to the investigation. Some are the names of companies registered in Panama linked to the Uruguayan representative such as Inti Holding LLP, UP Sport Group LLP, MM&A Profesional Servicies International LLC and Playmaker Sports Management SA of its partner Pedro Aldave Ortúzar, of Paraguayan-Argentine nationality.

The plot is complex but the judicial investigation is progressing. According to the documents seized, it appears that player transfers were made for amounts lower than reported and there was a runaway breakout. The former attacker who started Hurricane Buceo in Montevideo and loves smoking cigars is just one piece of the puzzle, researchers say. Now they want to aim higher.