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Judge Villena Accuses Prosecutor of Forum Shopping in Sur Finanzas Case as Appeals Court Weighs Jurisdiction

More than 50 seized phones are now under analysis after raids, account freezes, lifting of secrecy, urgent measures in parallel cases over alleged multi‑billion‑peso evasion with football links.

Overview

  • Federal Judge Federico Villena referred prosecutor Cecilia Incardona to Procurador Eduardo Casal, alleging she tried to steer the AFIP complaint to another court.
  • The Federal Chamber of La Plata will decide whether the AFIP-driven probe stays with Villena or is joined to a related file overseen by Judge Luis Armella.
  • Judge Armella ordered urgent steps in the earlier case, including freezing Sur Finanzas’ accounts, lifting fiscal and banking secrecy, and raids at company sites and Banfield-linked locations.
  • Investigators seized more than 50 phones—among them devices belonging to Ariel Vallejo, his mother Graciela Vallejo, and former Banfield president Eduardo Spinoza—with Vallejo providing his passcode.
  • Searches also yielded sponsorship agreements with clubs and player-transfer contracts, as AFIP alleges roughly 3.3 billion pesos in unpaid cheque tax and operations involving hundreds of billions of pesos.