“Companies are managed with money”, the phrase for which Patricia Bullrich fired her second and sent him to investigate by the Anti-Corruption Office

“The companies are managed by putting money always to make things work“. The phrase, an undoubted offer of bribes, was put into the mouths of Vicente Ventura Barreirothe former Secretary of Security that Patricia Bullrich fired.

Who put that suggestion with a hint of corruption – and other similar ones – in the mouth of the fired official He was a subaltern, Fernando Martínezthe director of Federal Penitentiary Service. And she did in front of the minister and other area officials, in a meeting in Bullrich’s office this Saturday.

Before the revelationBullrich ordered a report to be drawn up on that statement, he signed it and had it signed by those present and He sent it to the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) so that the official who would be fired minutes later can be investigated.

Martínez’s complaint was extremely detailed and was climbing the organizational chart to Bullrich urgently. The official placed the offering from his superior, Ventura Barreiro, last June 12when it was summoned to the office of the then virtual vice minister of security.

“He asked about the food tenders for the inmates of federal prisons,” Martínez said that Ventura Barreiro said, according to what was written in the minutes that were sent to the OA and to which he accessed Clarion.

Always according to the penitentiary’s reconstruction of his superior’s statements, Martínez recalled that, in an introductory manner, Ventura Barreiro told him that “when the minister left, He was going to be the next Minister of Security“. He maintained that he also told him that “he It wasn’t ‘police of police’ and that he was interested in knowing how the bidding documents for meals for federal prisons were going to be written.

Then, always according to the complainant, the now fired official advanced. “He added that behind the companies who expected to participate there was ‘Coti’ Nosiglia and his people and that companies are managed always putting money so that things work and that is a common practice“.

Then Martínez made it known – in theory to his superior, but also to the rest – that he did not want to know anything about the insinuation received. “The deponent states that he responded that he didn’t need anythingwho had strongly insisted that the appointment of his own position be ad honorem because he knew that ‘this scourge of cartelized companies’ was a long-established phenomenon and that he wanted to eradicate it,” it was written in the minutes.

But in the then Secretary of Security – again according to his complainant – this refusal would not have been forceful enough to not insist that “in any case, companies always put money“, to which Martínez would have responded by telling them to “not put more money anywhere”, among other ethical phrases from the complainant.

“The Secretary of Security then asked him to give him the name of a lawyer of your trust to what to settle with the companies“, says the minutes about what Ventura Barreiro would have proposed as an alternative to the penitentiary director to insist on the alleged offer of improper payments to rig purchases for the prisons.

Given the repeated refusal, Martínez says that Ventura Barreiro changed his strategy. “The Secretary of Security He asked me to send him a document of the tenders, as they are going to come out”, it was written.

Before landing in the national government alongside the minister, the former official had been part of the management of Maria Eugenia Vidal in the Province of Buenos Aires. He served as Undersecretary of Security Planning. He was, in fact, the second of Cristian Ritondothen provincial minister.

Ventura Barreiro worked throughout the 2023 campaign for Ritondo’s candidacy for the Buenos Aires governorship, but finally the PRO deputy declined that aspiration and joined the Bullrich team, like the one now thrown out. The inside of the political space founded and chaired by Mauricio Macri finds Ritondo and Javier Milei’s minister at odds, although Bullrich came out to remove these political differences from his decision.

In addition to Bullrich and the complainant, at the meeting in the office on the eighth floor of the ministry headquarters, at 2200 Gelly y Obes, there were Daniel Barberisgeneral director of Priority Affairs, Carlos Manfroniin charge of the Minister’s Advisory Cabinet Unit and Julian Curi, Undersecretary of Penitentiary Affairs. The latter had already heard Martínez’s story the day before, on Friday the 21st.

Curi was the one who called Manfroni, Bullrich’s chief advisor, to call the meeting that would define the exit by Ventura Barreiro. All of them signed the minutes that were provided to the Anti-Corruption Office. But It wasn’t the only thing that was sent there.

Martínez also said that, for the attention of the OA, he provided “the printout of the document in a simple copy, which forms an inseparable part of this declaration.” According to his story, the fired official insisted that the tender be sent to him. The penitentiary director said that instead of sending Ventura Barreiro the document he requested – on cooked food for prisons – he sent him one for contracting raw food.

“Two hours later, Dr. Ventura Barreiro sent him that same document with corrections and additions that he suggested making,” Martínez explained, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Then, this supposedly corrected material was sent to be analyzed by the ministry’s technicians. “Two or three days later he received the technical return with the comparison of both documents. The required modifications coincided with the usual specifications that were precisely being changed in order to increase the participation of the companies,” said Martínez, who surmised that “that The document necessarily had to be written by a company, since in two hours these observations, which coincide with the previous documents, could not have been made.”

According to Martínez, the addenda to the tender “were focused on the company background, who were intended to have experience in penitentiary establishments; that the company owned a manufacturing plant less than one hundred kilometers distance from the penitentiary unit; and requested that reject any offer that would be carried out by below ten percent (10%) of the witness pricewhich they called ‘vile price’.”

Then, Barberis entered the scene, asking Martínez “what was happening with the food and if he knew Maximiliano Rima,” who had contacted him about “late payments for prison food.” In parallel, Martínez asked him on WhatsApp whether the tender document had been “corrected”. When the director he told him nothat there were no changes and that it came out as the Undersecretary of Penitentiary Affairs had originally drafted it, the complainant said that Ventura Barreiro replied “what a mess” and cut him off.

And that’s how everything fell apart. Martínez spoke with Barberis, who called Manfroni and scheduled the meeting with Bullrich that ended in the ejection of Ventura Barreiro from the Government.