Today on the official AFA website, Sur Finanzas appears as a sponsor of the national teams and also gave its name to the Sur Finanzas 2024 Tournament, confirming the level of penetration it has achieved within the Argentine football ecosystem. This growth was also supported by agreements with clubs: according to a previous report by the Argentine News Agency itself, the company was the main sponsor of Banfield since 2022 and then expanded to other institutions in the Primera and Primera B divisions. The point is that this massive entry into football came under judicial scrutiny. In December, the Federal Police carried out more than 30 raids at the AFA headquarters, the Ezeiza training center, and at least 17 clubs, in an investigation ordered by Federal Judge Luis Armella into alleged links between Sur Finanzas and money laundering and tax evasion schemes. According to the same coverage, the case is based on a complaint from ARCA and mentions suspicious operations amounting to 818 billion pesos. The case continued to grow, and on February 20, ARCA expanded the criminal complaint against Sur Finanzas Group S.A. for the alleged misappropriation of pension and social security contributions withheld from employees and not paid into the system, for an amount exceeding 46 million pesos. Five days later, another report detailed 30 new raids on the company and described that the investigation now points to a suspected scheme of asset laundering, tax evasion, and evidence concealment, with Vallejo as the main suspect. The most unsettling aspect of this sequence was not only the number of operations but the suspicion that someone tried to erase traces before the expert examinations could take place. Four people were arrested for allegedly deleting evidence and concealing Vallejo in the Sur Finanzas case. In other words, the issue is no longer just about contracts or the money circuit, but also about what the Justice system presumes might have happened to the evidence. #AgenciaNA This report is based on the firm's own investigation. Buenos Aires, March 5 (NA)—The owner of Sur Finanzas, Ariel Vallejo, posted two mysterious messages on his WhatsApp status, sparking great curiosity, as they could be related to the money laundering investigation in which the president of the AFA, Claudio 'Chiqui' Tapia, his treasurer Pablo Toviggino, and some Argentine football clubs are implicated. During the afternoon on Thursday, Vallejo posted two WhatsApp statuses that caught attention. The first read, 'Life has already shown you that, whatever happens, you can recover,' and the other stated: 'And if we don't go for everything, what are we going for?'. Two motivational phrases, yes, but posted precisely when explanations are no longer around him, only questions. The suspicion does not arise from a single post.
