Photo: Revista Puerto

The 15 'palos' (U$D million) bribe for passing the green light

ARGENTINA
Thursday, September 05, 2024, 03:00 (GMT + 9)

The scandal broke yesterday on “lapoliticaonline.com” in what appears to be an operation by the US embassy in defense of its companies, with a note without data and half-truths that, however, uncovers a scandal that is true.

President Javier Milei with Santiago Caputo

First things first: what is being discussed, which is the distribution of hake quotas for the next fifteen years, is an absolutely legal situation and the distributions that are made are based on the behavior of the companies during the last ten years, in which historical catches, number of registered workers, investments actually made, current fishing permits and accumulated infractions are considered.

From the combination of these data, the quota that corresponds to each boat arises and that's it. That's how it should be, that's how the Federal Fishing Law stipulates it, it's resolved by the Federal Fishing Council made up of the Executive Branch and the five provinces with a maritime coastline and it's controlled by the enforcement authority which is the Undersecretariat of Fishing of the Nation. A bureaucratic fact, an administrative procedure. Period.

But what happened? As if it were a game of good cop and bad cop, two characters burst in with the arrival of the new government who upset all the variables. On the one hand, Federico Sturzenegger, defenestrating fishing and launching all kinds of intimidation that put the sector on edge to the point of directly threatening to put the fishing quotas up for international tender so that any company from any country could take the resources without even going through the docks and leaving tens of thousands of people on the street. On the other hand, the underhanded irruption of a group of operators who, as this media was able to check, called representatives of the sector to different meetings saying that they were acting on behalf of Santiago Caputo.

In fact, the person in charge of the first talks held conversations with representatives of the country's most important fisheries in downtown Buenos Aires and in a basement on Paraguay Street.

While this was happening, other unprecedented things in the sector began to happen. For example, the accountant of one of the most important companies in Mar del Plata received an anonymous WhatsApp in which he was asked for 125 dollars per ton of hake, at first and then lowered to 100 dollars. He responded that he could not decide on the matter without consulting the owner of the company; by the time he had something to respond, the messages received had already been deleted.

Meanwhile, the meetings at the well-known Florida Garden in Buenos Aires continued to take place and, according to what we were able to find out off the record from sources in the sector, the bribe request ended up being 100 dollars per ton of hubbsi hake and 1000 dollars per ton of black hake. The ones that should pay were about 12 companies receiving about 120,000 tons of hubbsi hake, which would give the figure of 12 million dollars that, added to the 3.3 million of the black hake, would provide those 15 million dollars to which the portal “Lapoliticaonline” refers. All this, it is assumed, in the name of Santiago Caputo and La Libertad Avanza. Of course, there is nothing written about this, there are no photos and everyone is going to deny it.

In addition to all this, things were getting very strange and according to what this media was able to find out, it was no longer a request for money for the campaign as it usually happens between politicians and businessmen, but rather things were getting dark with movements typical of the intelligence services. The request, they say, became a pressure and there are even those who assure that the first negotiator was chased away from the table and armed people took over whom nobody in the fishing sector knew until now. Things would have gotten ugly, the demand would have been that “enough of biribiri and meetings with so many people. Here one person comes and brings the 15 sticks of everyone, they agree and that's it.” That would have been the final threat last week.

As things are, no one in the fishing sector is scared because someone asks them for money for the campaign or political activity. But this was something else because of the amounts demanded and the violent and unprecedented methods. Fishing, believe me or not, is far from being the mafia that they try to make us believe. The vast majority are people who work, invest, generate employment and wealth in the country and, if they have a penny left, build a new boat. There are people in the sector who were born on the docks, with roots, history and commitment to what they do.

And things got ugly and they got ugly because some businessmen refused to pay; they say that the first one to say “no” was Tony Solimeno. But it seems that what kicked the anthill was the refusal of the Iberconsa Group, owned by the Platinum Equity fund, with origins in the United States and, logically, with links to the embassy of that country, which would have uncovered the scandal through the aforementioned portal.

So far the story with more or less nuances, much less than I could tell if I had been able to check them.

But yes, there are some points that I would like to highlight as a context for the situation described. Fishing, unlike other sectors, is not an activity like the countryside or a screw factory. If you have a field you can sow or not and it is your decision, pay the corresponding taxes and that's it, it is your problem. If you manufacture screws you can manufacture many screws or none and it is also your problem, you open or close your factory and that's it. But, if you have a fishing company, it is very possible that you have twenty, one hundred, five hundred or one thousand workers who depend on the quotas granted by the State and that almost always puts the sector in a certain dependence on the politicians in power, even though the law, theoretically, would exempt from these discretionary situations by clearly stipulating the distributions according to the merits of each company.

The quotas that are being talked about are catch quotas that by law are redistributed every fifteen years and correspond to the companies, not because they give money to the politician in power, but because it is determined by Law 24.922 that regulates the activity and, in addition, they are not free. Fishing, more than the extraction rights, bears a tax and fiscal burden that is around 45% of the total invoiced. Something that would be scandalous in the majority of the countries with which it competes in the international market.

That is to say that the alleged request for a bribe would not be to give something that is not due, it would be in any case a pressure from the government wing that would respond to Santiago Caputo with the threat that, if they do not pay, they will give free rein to Federico Sturzenegger's claims to tender the quotas internationally and make a large part of the fishing sector disappear.

And it is not so simple that the companies can stand up and kick the table because, ultimately, the quotas correspond to them by law and based on their merits, but on the other side is the government apparatus. The issue is that the government has many resources to, if it wanted, complicate the life of the companies until it suffocates them and forces them to pay. The alleged bribe of fifteen million dollars to give the companies the catch quotas that by law correspond to them, would be something like paying to pass the traffic light in green. I'm asking you for fifteen sticks because you passed the green light, because if not I'll ask you for the VTV, the driver's license, the paid license plate, proof of vaccinations, a dental checkup, your children's report cards and a certificate of good conduct.

That being the case, it is possible that in the next few days there will be more news on this subject and surely there will also be a lot of dirt and lies. The Federal Fisheries Council has in its power the distribution of hake quotas for the next fifteen years and the best way to clear up all doubts should be to do it to the letter according to what the law says. And, on the other hand, it would be interesting to be able to know by name and surname who these guys are who asked for fifteen million dollars in contributions for Libertad Avanza in the name of Santiago Caputo, in case this could be proven.

Author/Source: Guillermo Nahum/Revista Puerto (translated from original in Spanish)

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