The Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires has ordered the replacement of the general asset freezes imposed on former Banco Nación officials and Grupo Vicentin entrepreneurs with preventive attachments in the investigation into the alleged multi-million dollar fraud against the state entity. The measure affects former Banco Nación executives and entrepreneurs from the Santa Fe province being investigated for the irregular granting of credits totaling approximately 300 million dollars to the Santa Fe grain company, money that could never be collected. The court understood that the general asset freeze against the accused "is exceptional and subsidiary" and ordered its replacement with preventive attachments, the amount of which must be set by the trial judge according to each person's responsibility. The Appeals Court judges Leopoldo Bruglia, Pablo Bertuzzi, and Mariano Llorens also confirmed the ban on altering the corporate shares of the 26 accused, whose interrogations have already been ordered by federal judge Julián Ercolini. The case investigates the irregular granting of multi-million dollar loans in foreign currency to companies from Grupo Vicentin — including Vicentin S.A.I.C. and Algodonera Avellaneda S.A. — the lifting of guarantees and the omission of collections, which prevented the cancellation of the business group's debt to the entity, which would have reached approximately three hundred million dollars (USD 300,000,000). The entrepreneurs are accused of having refused to pay the outstanding balances knowing that they would not be required to pay; having requested the release of the funds the bank held as collateral with the certainty that they would be delivered to them; and having omitted the constitution of new guarantees, sure that they would not be demanded either. They also requested new loans, in violation of current regulations. Finally, according to the accusation of federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, they were accused of withdrawing "the assets from the custody of the BNA, allegedly using apocryphous invoicing and transferring funds abroad through simulated operations, part of which would have ended up in accounts located in tax havens". Among the accused are former Banco Nación officials Miguel Ángel Arce, Agustín Pesce, and Lucas Llach, and Grupo Vicentin entrepreneurs such as Alberto Julián Macua, Máximo Javier Padoan, Daniel Néstor Buyatti, Herman Roberto Vicentin, and Roberto Oscar Vicentin.
