Sergio Massa makes the first complaint in the United States to a company that has over-invoiced its imports

As the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, indicated a few days ago at a press conference in Neuquén, the government denounced in the United States to a company that over-invoiced imports through a triangulation mechanism and was raided in July.

“Attention, the fact that the state gives advantages does not mean that it is stupid!”, Massa warned, speaking last Thursday, as part of the Argentina Oil & Gas (AOG) Patagonia fair which takes place in Neuquén, and where he announced measures and investments to increase oil and gas production.

In connection with that complaint that today, in early July, the processing plant that the company NRG Argentina inaugurated in November in the northern area of ​​the city of Allen, in Río Negro, with an investment of 200 million dollars and which supplies sand to Vaca Muerta. It is the region’s first high-tech complex, designed to provide the oil industry with this essential fracking input.

As Massa announced 5 days ago, the complaint was not in the Argentine judicial system. “Those who use US banks to launder money,will be denounced in the banks and in the courts of the United States “, anticipated the head of economics.

In relation to the complaint, the Central Bank is granted a three-day deadline for sending all information relating to currency transfers related to the imports under investigation.

And, along the same lines, he also asks that the RILO Customs-AFIP division collaborate with United States Customs “to send all the information” that matters in the matter.

“Likewise, it is requested that through them the invoices issued by Marull Heavy Equipment LLC, related to the investigated operations, as well as all information relating to payments made for the goods, are requested”, indicates the complaint filed in the last hour.

The operations

On 3 August, the day of his inauguration at the head of the Economy, Massa had anticipated that “there are more than 13,000 triangulated import operations of 722 companies who bought products at a price, passed them through another destination, and brought them to Argentina at a surcharge. In general, the triangulation was done with companies that were no more than a year old. “

On that occasion Massa took over it “A register will be opened for 60 days for companies to make an adjustment”and warned that “complaints will be filed before the Argentine justice of those who do not seem to clarify or rectify, but the complaint will also be filed before the anti-money laundering unit of the United States, since the banks of that country and therefore the place of financial domicile determine the jurisdiction “.

The next day, the director general of customs, Guillermo Michel, reported a “first universe” of over-billing and under-billing operations in foreign trade for “approximately US $ 1,250 million in FOB value”.

The irregular transactions that allowed companies to raise more dollars to operate in foreign trade than they would have been entitled to, would cover, a priori, from the beginning of 2021 to the present.

YN