the winner didn’t have the money

The auction was news in itself. These were four high-end cars and trucks owned by Marcelo Balcedo (58), the former leader of the Union of Minority and Education Workers and Employees (Soeme), valued at around $ 800,000. What happened next was unexpected: a “drunk” entered the auction, made the best bids for three of the vehicles, but in the end he didn’t have the money and ruined the sale. at auction. Now they are investigating him for scam.

The episode, indeed bizarre, occurred in Uruguay, where Balcedo was arrested in January 2018 and is serving a sentence for “money laundering, smuggling and arms trafficking”. In this case, a fleet of luxury cars, two mansions in Punta del Este, an arsenal of weapons and ammunition and about $ 7 million in a safe and five safes in a bank were seized at union member.

It is suspected that the fortune is the product of corruption with union funds, which would reach 500 million pesos according to an investigation by the federal justice of La Plata.

The auction of four of these cars organized by the National Medicines Office of Uruguay was scheduled for Thursday at 11 a.m. in a room at the Radisson Victoria Plaza in Montevideo. The cars were a Porsche Panamera, a Porsche Boxster S, a Chevrolet Camaro and a Land Rover Range Rover Sport 4×4. The authorities’ goal was to collect $ 250,000 for the four cars.

The situation was seasoned in advance because on Monday, Balcedo’s wife, Paola Fiege (36) – also convicted – passed through the lobby of the National Association of Appraisers and Real Estate Brokers (Anrtci) where the vehicles were on display to learn more about the auction.

In dialogue with the site Montevideo portal, Fiege expressed his intention to buy back the vehicles that Uruguayan justice had confiscated from him.

Another ingredient was added on Tuesday: Sergio Omar Martínez (51), owner of a car dealership linked to Balcedo and who has been jailed in a money laundering case, called for the suspension of the auction of the four luxury cars, claiming that two were your property. Justice did not respond to his request and the auction took place on Thursday.

That morning, in the Radisson ballroom, there were a lot of people interested in unionists’ cars. A few minutes after 11 am, auctioneer Mario Molina began to offer the vehicles. The auction has started. Fiege was in the room but silent.

A man in a sports jacket bidding on the Boxster S, Camaro, Range Rover and Panamera began to grab the attention of those in attendance. The auction became dynamic but in the end this unknown person, who never stopped talking on the phone, managed to win three of the four auctions.

The Porsche Panamera was awarded $ 125,000, the Range Rover for $ 133,000 and the Camaro for $ 82,000. He could not with the Boxster S that another interested party took him for 73 thousand. The auction was a resounding success for the organizers, as they nearly doubled their target amount.

The unexpected happened when it was time to put the hook in the operation and leave the signal to the three cars. “We are waiting for you, sir“Molina said to the man in the sports jacket and invited him to a reserved room.

The auction rules established that the winner had to leave a mark of 30% of the fixed price for each vehicle. In other words, about $ 102,000. The man then said that he was in fact a mechanic and that it was on behalf of a businessman from Nueva Palmira, Colonia, who had the money but not in cash, but in the fields and in a notary’s office.

Then he called the businessman’s daughter to sign the purchase of the vehicles. The young woman appeared at the Radisson Victoria Plaza and gave a version that further intrigued the organizers: “My dad is drunk, has psychiatric problems and doesn’t have much money“.

The newsletter gave rise to a fraud complaint from the National Drug Office and to an investigation by the Organized Crime Directorate and Interpol. When called in to testify, the mechanic confirmed his initial version to the police: “This man from Nueva Palmira told me that when he won the bid at the auction, he had to call. her daughter and tell her that she was going to sign the purchase of the cars. “.

The Cologne police picked up the businessman from his home and, upon his arrival, they came across a drunk person. The officers nevertheless informed him that he had been summoned to testify in Montevideo and the man refused. As reported The country, Justice assessed his request for arrest and transferred him to a police station for questioning.

Anything can now lead to criminal proceedings against the mechanic and the employer. The most concrete is that the auction of cars has been suspended. It would be done again in a month. There has been a controversy in Uruguay over why they did not award the vehicles to the second place bidders. The problem is that this rule was not informed at the time of the auction and, at the same time, as a ‘scam’ is investigated, the prices could have been inflated during the auction. ‘offers.

Even when it was not yet clear what the outcome of the auction would be, auctioneer Molina admitted seeing “a lot of people interested” in the cars without ever imagining that the sale prices would be “so high”.

As soon as the auction was over, Balcedo’s wife rose from her chair, began to applaud, and left accompanied by a man. In dialogue with the newspaper The observer From Uruguay, Feige said car prices were “overvalued” and added: “Maybe because they were ours. We see that it is attractive to have cars from a leader“, He said.

The Balcedo affair

Balcedo is unionized by the Argentinian justice as the “head” of an “illicit association” accused of having embezzled 500 million pesos belonging to the Soeme union between 2012 and 2018. For this reason, ten friends and relatives of the unionist are translated in justice. except Balcedo, for whom his extradition from Uruguay is still awaited.

In the neighboring country, what had been the “biggest seizure of money in history” – based on Argentina’s investigation – has been deflated over time. First, the Uruguayan courts have granted Balcedo and his wife Paola Fiege – also detained – a house arrest in one of their mansions. Later, Balcedo’s demand for 11 years in prison was reduced to four years and 8 months in a deal in which the union member and his wife pleaded guilty to avoid an oral trial. Fiege was sentenced to three years in prison. The two avoided going back to prison.

In exchange, they had to give the Uruguayan state $ 8 million, a mansion in Maldonado and the four high-end cars from the failed auction: the Porsche Panamera, the Porsche Boxster S, the Chevrolet Camaro and a 4×4. Land Rover Range Rover Sport. .

Finally, Justice ended up returning to the couple a large part of the luxury vehicles from a fleet of 14 that had been seized, among them, a Ferrari California, a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, a Dodge Ram 2500 SLT truck, a pickup -up Ford. Raptor, four jet skis, among others. They also gave them a mansion and paid them back $ 2.5 million.

In October 2020, federal judge Ernesto Kreplak, who is investigating Balcedo and its surroundings in our country, asked Uruguayan justice to keep the $ 2.5 million that had been seized in the kidnapped investigation. The judge requested Balcedo’s extradition on different occasions to testify to Soeme’s embezzlement and money laundering. They allocated 61 assets between cars, boats and high-end properties. Balcedo was never extradited and could not be investigated by video conference.

EMJ