The so-called "fake donor" scandal continues rattling the Mauricio Macri government.
A criminal complaint made against the ruling Cambiemos coalition over the financing of its 2017 mid-term election campaign was this week broadened to include its national and Buenos Aires City campaigns led by President Macri and lawmaker Elisa Carrió, respectively.
The La Alameda political-activist group which made the initial complaint says it has presented evidence to the courts to back up its allegations.
The "fake donor" scandal centres on allegations Cambiemos (Let's Change) laundered money by falsifying donation receipts using the names and details of low-income welfare recipients.
Buenos Aires province governor María Eugenia Vidal last week sacked her province's general accountant and ordered a full audit of contributions to the Cambiemos coalition's 2017 midterm electoral campaign in the region.
The governor said she had asked María Fernanda Inza to resign her post, though she called it a "preventative" measure and indicated the official still had her trust.
FAKE RECEIPTS
Federal prosecutor Carlos Stornelli has requested the auditing of campaign finances and an investigation into the structure of the campaign’s accounting and financial teams.
In Buenos Aires province, four hundred people were listed as donors without knowing, with these fake donors appearing in financial statements as having given anywhere from AR$ 300 to AR$ 5,000, for a total of at least AR $300,000, the news site El Destape reported.
The money was then allegedly used to fund the campaigns of candidates Gladys González, Esteban Bullrich, Graciela Ocaña, and Héctor “Toty” Flores, all of whom won their respective races.
The complaint was made by the La Alameda and picked up by the anti-Macri news platform El Destape.
-TIMES
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