At first, the investigation of Erwin Loza (42) this Monday passed by the foreseeable paths. The man, accused of laundering in our country millions of euros of drug trafficking international, repeatedly declared his innocence before the Economic Criminal Court No. 3. And he took all the time in the world to give details of his business life.
By zoom, from the jail of Marcos Paz, Loza gave his version about the origin of his numerous properties (hotels, garage buildings, houses, cars) and incidentally tried to hide the investigation that has been imprisoned for two and a half years. At this last point – the counterattack – he really surprised.
Averaging his statement -which lasted about two hours- Loza said that seven months before his arrest (made in December 2018) They had offered to close the case if he paid two million dollars.
The offer, he said, came to him via his friend and former partner, Cristian Ponsetti (with lack of merit in this case), who told him that he had been contacted by a lawyer who showed him parts of the file. “One day he called me very concerned and asked me to meet as soon as possible. We met the next morning and he told me about the two million,” said Loza, who could not explain why he did not make the complaint at the time
Roberto Herrera, lawyer for Leonardo Fariña and the former Kirchner accountant, Víctor Manzanares, in the case for the route of the money K.
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At first he said it without giving further details, but the episode was later deepened in the interrogation stage. Then a very media character appeared on the scene, the criminal lawyer Roberto Herrera.
Herrera became publicly known in recent years for representing Victor Manzanares, the former Kirchne accountantr, y a Leonardo Fariña in the judgment of the money route K. In addition, his face appeared in all the media in March last year when he denounced that from a motorcycle on which two people were traveling, they intercepted him and shot him after threatening him.
“I did not see this man in my life, I do not know why he says such a thing. I am calm,” Herrera told Clarion and immediately began to see the trial on the platform where it is broadcast to the public.
Loza’s story is spicy and has its dark and contradictory points. In addition to involving Herrera he also tried to splatter the prosecution. “What Herrera told Cristian (Ponsetti) was that he was working with the prosecutor and that the case was very serious; and that if I paid, they wouldn’t put it on me “he declared.
Loza did not name any prosecutor. A detail: it is a known practice in Courts that some lawyers cite contacts with an official who does not really know that his name is being used. This practice is called “turning.”
But he did recognize Herrera in the photo of a screenshot that the trial prosecutor, Gabriel Pérez Barbera, showed him after being authorized by the judges. “Yes, yes, he is the same. He is a well-known man,” confirmed the defendant who, however, staggered a bit when the president of the court asked him how, if he had not spoken directly with Herrera, he was so sure that he was it was about that person.
“Because later I saw him in jail and on television “, Loza answered. But the president retorted: “But you were not there when they supposedly asked you for money to close the case.”
Then, cornered, Loza assured that in fact he had already had an episode with Roberto Herrera ten years before: “I had a concessionaire on Crovara avenue and with Cristian Ponsetti we were going to eat at a nearby restaurant. One day they arrested two guys with cocaine. There. Herrera appeared later to tell Cristian how we could fix it, because those two detainees they said that the drug had been given to them “.
Although confusing and zigzagging, Erwin Loza’s testimony shook an audience that had been developing smoothly. Believable or not, his statement ended with a heated debate between the parties, after the prosecutor Pérez Barbera asked the court to summon Herrera to testify as a witness.
“I don’t know him, I’m going to report him, and if you want I do a confrontation “, he assured Clarion Herrera, after surprisingly seeing himself as the center of one of the oral trials for drug money laundering most important of the Argentine criminal history.
For now the end is open.
Without deciding whether or not to call the lawyer, the court adjourned the hearing at 6.30 pm and summoned the parties for Wednesday at 10. Only then will it be known whether the bomb that Loza threw will have other chapters.
SC
