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The Panama Papers, released on April 3rd 2016, listed the President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri.
President Macri said that it was totally legal, but some argued that it was not ethical.
Yesterday, he was imputed because of the Papers, and I want to know: is this just a political move, or could President Macri really be sent to jail?
Yes, it is possible for revelations in the Panama Papers to lead to jailtime, even for those holding the highest offices in a country, as evidenced from this answer about the former Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Of course, whether this applies to any specific person named in the report depends on their involvement. In the case of former Argentinian President Macri, there doesn't seem to have been anything criminal. According to Wikipedia (the extent of the alleged wrongdoing):
Macri was listed as a director of Fleg Trading from 1998 to 2009. He did not declare his involvement in 2007, when he became mayor, or in 2015, when he became president. Prosecutor Federico Delgado asked the judiciary to determine if Macri "maliciously failed to complete his tax declaration". Macri argued that he did not report his involvement because he was not a stakeholder and did not receive money from it. The company was established by his father to run a failed Brazilian business. Macri owns other foreign accounts with properly-disclosed transactions, and said that he would file a judicial "declaration of certainty" to affirm his statements. A similar company, Kagemusha, was discovered several months later. It was established in 1981 by Franco Macri, with his then-22-year-old son as its vice president.
And as the Wikipedia article continues, regarding the subsequent investigation:
On 20 September 2017, civil judge Andrés Fraga determined that, in Fleg Trading Ltd, Mauricio Macri accepted the position of director for the sole and only effect of designating a replacement and resigning, and that in Kagemusha he did not even tacitly accept the position of director for which he was appointed by Franco Macri. The ruling added that he was not a shareholder in either of the two companies, that he did not receive any dividends or profits, did not participate in the business decisions, nor was he the owner or co-owner of any current bank account of the companies.
As Wikipedia's source for this last paragraph, an article by La Nacion (in Spanish), states:
De esta manera, el padre del Presidente, Franco Macri, quedó como el responsable ante la Justicia de la creación y las operaciones que realizaron las sociedades offshore.
“Esto clausura el debate sobre si Macri tendría que haber declarado la existencia de estas empresas”, dijeron a LA NACION fuentes oficiales.
In other words, it was the former president's father who was responsible for the offshore companies' operations and officials have told the paper that this concludes the debate about the former president's obligation to declare the existence of those companies.
Is this just a politician move?
That's unclear. It may just as well have been that there appeared to be misconduct at the time.
