Federal prosecutors Diego Luciani and José Ipohorski They asked today that the former Secretary of Internal Commerce Guillermo Moreno be sentenced to four years in prison and 10 years of disqualification from holding public office for manipulating data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC). Moreno was accused of having committed the crimes of violation of secrets, abuse of authority, destruction of records and documents, and ideological falsehood.
The Prosecutor’s Office concluded its arguments before the Federal Oral Court 2 of Comodoro Py and also requested a sentence for three other former officials: four years in prison and 10 years of disqualification from holding public office for the former director of the IPC of the INDEC Beatriz Paglieri and two years of suspended prison and five years of disqualification for employees Marcela Filia and Maria Celeste Campora AvellanedaThe trial will continue next Wednesday, July 10, at 9:30 a.m. with the start of the defense arguments.
In addition, prosecutors also requested that an investigation be opened against the former Minister of Economy of the Nation, Felisa Miceli. They argued that INDEC depended on their Ministry and not on Moreno’s Secretary of Commerce, so they believe that an investigation should be carried out to determine whether the former official could have also committed a crime.
The Prosecutor’s Office considered in its arguments that Moreno, as Secretary of Commerce, made a de facto intervention by INDEC with the appointment of Paglieri to artificially lower inflation. “The indices were lowered with hammer blows. Inflation did not have to exceed 10 percent and they achieved it by lying”Luciani said. And he added: “Moreno, through the introduction of Paglieri, had managed to reach all the confidential information that was forbidden to him.”
The prosecutor pointed out that the law establishes the confidentiality of information and every person at INDEC knew about this. “It was unanimously learned from the testimonies that, since Paglieri’s arrival, they began to extract daily a large number of photocopies of the index forms that were accumulated in folders so that Paglieri could then take them out of the agency”he said, and explained that the photocopies were made by Filia and Cámpora Avellaneda.
Ipohorski said that in order to keep inflation rates low, a system of price caps was introduced that could not exceed 15 percent of the increase per product. The Prosecutor’s Office also said that at INDEC there were plainclothes police officers who controlled the employees and some of them were even locked in offices. There were also dismissals and withdrawal of passwords or tasks.
The hearing was held by videoconference and the four defendants were connected. After the defense arguments, the judges Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, Jorge Gorini and Néstor Costabel They will set the date for the hearing in which they will announce the verdict.
The trial began last April and Moreno denied the accusations. “We use the price conversation. That’s what we did”, the former official said before the court. Moreno did recognize the impact that the INDEC results had. “It is very complex how prices are set. We used the price conversation. That’s what we did and we dealt with all prices, not just some. The conversation about prices took place in my office with the person designated by the company,” declared the former official.
Along these lines, he relativized the function of the organism. “I did not need INDEC for my work, my management did not depend on that institute. My work greatly exceeded it. “The value of the salary had to be preserved and INDEC only did statistics”. And he added: “I was not interested in knowing the confidential statistical data because I had all the market prices.”
This is Moreno’s fourth oral trial. In October 2017, he was sentenced to two years and six months in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office for the crime of embezzlement for having used public funds to buy merchandising with the legend “Clarín Miente”.
And in July 2022 he was sentenced to two years of suspended prison and six months of disqualification from holding public office for the crime of coercive threats for the case of “Helmet or gloves?” which he offered at a 2010 company meeting. Newsprint. None of these sentences are final, since they were appealed and, therefore, were not executed.
Meanwhile, he was acquitted in December 2021 for having disrupted an assembly of the Clarín Group in April 2013 in which he participated on behalf of the State together with the current governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof.
