Businessman Ernesto Clarens, in his 2018 plea deal in the 'Cuadernos' case, stated that he received illegal payments from businessmen which he delivered to the private secretary of former President Néstor Kirchner, the late Daniel Muñoz, and in some cases, he took the money to an apartment in Recoleta that was owned by the former leader and his wife, Cristina Kirchner. Clarens, whose testimony was part of the fourth day of the oral trial for the 'Cuadernos' case by the Federal Oral Court 7, recounted how his relationship with the Kirchner couple began, in exchange for commissions on the illegal payments he received from businessmen, according to the testimony accessed by the Noticias Argentinas news agency. In his plea testimony, Clarens explained that 'there were five companies that could work in the south' on public works in the province of Santa Cruz, during the time when Kirchner was governor, and that when he became president, that scheme was replicated at the national level. 'They distributed the works among themselves, it was a small brotherhood. To work in the south, you had to have two years of experience and that's why no new one could get in... Those companies gave disproportionate returns to Governor Kirchner and the same thing was repeated here (in Buenos Aires) when Kirchner was President,' he said. Clarens described the operations, stating that, as he was explained, when he received the money 'he had to separate a part, give it to Lázaro Báez' and added: 'I suppose that he gave it to Néstor Kirchner'. As an example of this operation, he indicated: 'At a certain moment (Daniel) Muñoz asked me to try to bring euros in 500 bills because they took up less space'. He explained that in many cases 'the delivery of money was coordinated with Muñoz at the Panamericano Hotel, where he always had a room, or at the Juncal and Uruguay address of the Kirchners, in case the amounts were more important'. 'In those cases, Muñoz waited for me in the lobby of the ground floor, I never went up to the apartment,' he clarified. Clarens's testimony is added to that of the also deceased Fabián Gutiérrez, who stated in court: 'Daniel Muñoz, on most trips, carried suitcases with locks to which he was the only one who had access and was located in the back of the plane, passing the presidential area. I did not see the content of the suitcases but it was commented that they contained money'. 'On those trips, when we arrived at the residence in El Calafate and Muñoz arrived, Néstor Kirchner had us leave,' Gutiérrez pointed out. 'I did not see vaults in that house but there was a place, down the stairs, where there was a closed white door, where we secretaries said that 'the story was there', he said in relation to the place where the aforementioned packages could be kept. It was the only place in the house where I did not have access, even though I moved with absolute freedom through the property,' he explained.
