Three prosecutors charged Armando Traferri, a legislator for the department of San Lorenzo, who requested to testify today, when the hearing that is being held at the Criminal Justice Center resumes.
Argentina.- Senator for the department of San Lorenzo, Santa Fe, Armando “Pipi” Traferri was charged this Tuesday by a group of three prosecutors from the Public Prosecution Ministry as the alleged leader of an organization that has been providing cover for illegal gambling in the province in recent years.
The case, which gained momentum in 2020, included him among the accused more than three years later because the legislator only resigned his parliamentary immunity in September last year, after learning that the judicial officials who had started the investigation had been displaced.
In a hearing, the prosecutors José Luis Caterina, Marisol Fabbro, and María de los Ángeles Granato attributed to Traferri the leadership of an alleged criminal association dedicated “to providing cover for illegal gambling in Santa Fe” and “to hiding its profits”. They added that the senator formed a structure that provided “both political and judicial protection, especially in criminal matters” to its members.
According to the prosecutors, the alleged organization had members with specific roles that “ranged from managing gambling activities and their collection, political fundraising, and managing judicial cover, as well as individuals who disguised the origin of the money”.
Regarding the management of illegal gambling, the judicial officials highlighted the figure of Leonardo Peiti, a legal gambling businessman who had a clandestine network in Santa Fe and accepted a plea deal in December 2021, resulting in a 3-year prison sentence and a fine of AR$ 47m (USD 48,222).
Peiti also testified as a “repentant” and pointed out that his superiors in the structure had been Traferri, the then chief prosecutor of Rosario Patricio Serjal –charged in the case, soon to go to trial– and the then prosecutor Gustavo Ponce Asahad, who also ended up with a 3-year prison sentence in a plea deal where he accepted the charges. The relationship between Traferri and Peiti was established for the prosecutors, based on mutual calls, cell phone tower hits, and personal meetings they had carried out.
The prosecutors emphasized that those in charge of “collecting for politics” were the now-charged senator and Ricardo Paulichenco, who was the Legislative Secretary of the Senate and died in 2019.
They also stated that those responsible for concealing the origin and destination of the money from illegal gambling were the former provincial deputy of the Peronism Darío Scataglini, the lawyer José Fernández Chemes, who was the secretary of Legal and Technical Affairs of the Municipality of Villa Gobernador Gálvez, and the former Formula 1 pilot Oscar “Popi” Larrauri, who provided information regarding the alleged maneuvers made together with Peiti.
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Furthermore, the judicial investigators indicated that Traferri himself sought to take charge of the bicameral commission of the Legislature that aimed to regulate the operation of casinos and bingos in the province. They also mentioned that the senator managed to negotiate with the former regional prosecutor Serjal a suspension of trial for Peiti's brother for a case in Villa Constitución, thus also attributing possible influence peddling to him.
