Two top officials who served in both Kirchner administrations in the 2000s were on Monday ordered to spend five years behind bars for their role in a corruption and bribery scheme linked to a Swedish construction firm.
Federal Oral Court No. 4 on Monday sentenced former federal planning minister Julio De Vido and former public works secretary José López to five years in prison and permanently barred them from holding public office after finding them guilty of accepting bribes and fraudulent administration to the detriment of the state in connection with the so-called ‘Skanska’ corruption case.
The court also handed down sentences to former executives of the Swedish engineering and construction firm and other intermediaries. Of the 30 defendants who stood trial after proceedings began in 2024, 17 were eventually acquitted.
Mario Piantoni, Skansa’s former regional chief executive; Gustavo Vago, the firm’s former president in Argentina; and former commercial manager Javier Azcárate were each sentenced to four years in prison.
Other former executives, including Eduardo Varni, Héctor Obregón, Juan Carlos Bos, Alejandro Gerlero and Roberto Antonio Zareba, received suspended three-year prison sentences.
The verdict, announced Monday, was delivered by a three-judge panel comprising Jorge Gorini, Guillermo Costabel and María Gabriela López Iñiguez.
The Skanska case was the first major corruption scandal to emerge during late former president Néstor Kirchner's first term. It centred on allegations that the Swedish construction and engineering company paid bribes and inflated contract prices in order to secure keuy government contracts for the expansion of two gas pipelines in 2004.
Prosecutors alleged that the firm manipulated the tender process and bribed senior public officials, concealing the scheme through a network of more than 20 shell companies that issued fake invoices for services that were never provided.
A key piece of evidence was an internal company recording in which an executive acknowledged that bribes had been paid in exchange for securing the contracts.
De Vido has had several run-ins with Argentina’s courts. He was previously convicted over his role in the 2012 Once train disaster. In November 2025, Argentina's Supreme Court upheld a conviction and confirmed a four-year prison sentence after finding him criminally liable as a necessary participant in the offence of fraudulent administration.
– TIMES/NA
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