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Argentine ex-minister jailed for hiding $9 million in convent

By AFP
June 14, 2019

BUENOS AIRES: A court on Wednesday sentenced former Argentine minister Jose Lopez to six years in prison after he was caught by police trying to hide bags stuffed with $9 million in cash at a Buenos Aires convent.

The case became emblematic of the country’s corruption and first emerged when Lopez, 58, was caught red-handed tossing 160 suitcases and duffel bags over a wall into the garden of the convent. An 80-year-old Catholic nun, Sister Celia Ines Aparicio, who was charged with complicity in the case, was acquitted.

Lopez was part of a group of officials who were close to late president Nestor Kirchner and his successor and wife Cristina Kirchner. Lopez and his former boss, ex-planning minister Julio de Vido — who has also been jailed for corruption — managed the federal government’s public works projects under the Kirchners (2003-2015). His wife, Maria Diaz, was given a two-year suspended sentence for complicity in the case.