Overview
- Proceedings began Thursday with prosecutors reading the indictment in a videoconference hearing expected to stretch for months and potentially years.
- The case charges 87 defendants, including former ministers and executives from major firms, with operating a kickback network tied to public works from 2003 to 2015.
- Central evidence comes from driver Oscar Centeno’s notebooks describing alleged cash drops, which the defense plans to attack as altered and unreliable.
- Several business leaders turned cooperating witnesses and some later sought to retract statements, while courts and prosecutors rejected multimillion‑dollar repayment offers.
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is participating under house arrest from a separate six‑year conviction and has denounced the case as a “show,” after the Supreme Court cleared it by rejecting more than 20 appeals.