Argentine finance minister profited from dollar futures trading amid recent devaluation
Documents provided by Argentina's National Securities Commission (CNV) show that Finance Minister Luis Caputo profited by at least $700,000 during the recent fall in the value of the peso, which has tumbled from 17.50 to 25 per dollar since December.
The gains were made through three dollar futures transactions through Caputo's investment fund, Axis.
Axis, founded in 2012, was discovered last year to have received at least $30 million in investments by the nation's social security agency (ANSES).
Caputo, 53, was listed in the Paradise Papers leaks last November as controlling at least three undeclared offshore funds. The offshore funds, established in 2009, were omitted from Caputo's financial disclosure when he was named finance secretary in 2015.
Back to the futures
This is not the first time Caputo and others in President Mauricio Macri's right-wing administration has been embroiled in a dollar futures scandal.
Numerous Macri officials and relatives were discovered in March 2016 to have purchased millions of dollars in the same futures contracts ahead of Macri's 40% devaluation on December 17, 2015.
While the devaluation led to 45% inflation by mid-2016 and a severe recession, Caputo's Axis fund made $50 million from betting on the move - a devaluation Caputo himself organized as finance secretary.
Macri responded to the scandal by having a closely allied federal judge, Claudio Bonadío, charge former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other officials in her 2007-15 administration for having issued dollar futures in the first place.
The charges backfired when during subsequent testimony Mrs. Kirchner provided proof that the Macri family and several administration officials had personally profited from Macri's own devaluation, at a reported cost to the central bank of $4 billion in futures losses.
Central Bank President Federico Sturzenegger admitted on May 22 that the central bank had again issued dollar futures contracts in order to mitigate the recent run on the peso, which forced the central bank to sell $7.7 billion from its reserves and to request a $30 billion stand-by credit line from the IMF.
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fexclusivo-la-firma-que-fundo-caputo-gano-millones-el-dolar-futuro-macri-n44172&edit-text=
Argentine Finance Minister Luis Caputo: "If I'm guilty I'll eat this phone and throw myself through the window."
