Argentina
The Hotesur trial will begin in 2027 and the Los Sauces case will have a separate proceeding
TOF 5 set March 19, 2027, as the start date for the oral trial in the Hotesur case. According to Todo Noticias, Cristina Kirchner, Máximo Kirchner and Lázaro Báez will be among the defendants, while the Los Sauces case will continue separately.
The Federal Oral Court 5 set March 19, 2027, as the start of the oral and public trial in the Hotesur case, in which Cristina Kirchner, Máximo Kirchner and Lázaro Báez, among other defendants, will be tried for alleged money laundering and criminal association linked to the operation of family hotels in El Calafate.
According to Todo Noticias, the trial will be held in person and was separated from the Los Sauces case, which will continue on its own track. In that other case, the same court also set a start date for an oral and public trial, in which Cristina Kirchner, Máximo Kirchner, Lázaro Báez and Cristóbal López, among other defendants, will have to answer for alleged criminal association and money laundering through the family real estate company.
According to the reconstruction published by Todo Noticias, the investigation into Hotesur began in November 2014, following a complaint filed by Margarita Stolbizer. The case first went through the court of Claudio Bonadio, and in 2018 Julián Ercolini indicted the main defendants. The following year, the case was sent to trial.
The prosecution argues that companies in the Báez group, especially Valle Mitre SRL, managed or contracted rooms and services at the Alto Calafate hotel and at the Las Dunas inn, and that those payments would have served to incorporate into the family assets funds originating from public road works in Santa Cruz. Still according to Todo Noticias, the request to send the case to trial pointed to payments of more than $28 million to Hotesur and another $6.9 million for Las Dunas between March 2010 and May 2013.
In the Los Sauces case, the prosecution’s theory holds that the family real estate company did not operate as a market business and that between 2009 and 2016 it invoiced $25,968,042.30 to companies belonging to Báez and the Indalo Group, close to 88% of its billing, according to Todo Noticias. The prosecution says those payments concealed the return of funds from the awarding of public works.
Among the defendants in Hotesur are also Martín Báez, Víctor Manzanares, Osvaldo Sanfelice, Romina Mercado and Patricio Pereyra Arandia. Florencia Kirchner was left out of the trial by a final ruling from the Court of Cassation. In Los Sauces, that exception was also finalized, according to Todo Noticias.
The judicial path of both cases has undergone changes in recent years. TOF 5 had merged Los Sauces and Hotesur and in 2021 issued dismissals before trial, but that ruling was overturned by the Court of Cassation in 2023. At the end of 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the order sending the case to trial, Todo Noticias reported.
The defense teams reject the charges. In Hotesur, they argue that there were real contracts, banked payments, invoices and withholdings, and that hotel activity does not by itself prove money laundering. They also argued that what was debated in the Vialidad case cannot be reopened under another legal classification, where Cristina Kirchner and Báez have a final conviction for fraudulent administration in public works in Santa Cruz, according to Todo Noticias.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do its own reporting on this fact.
