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Weekly Report - 22 July 2003

ARGENTINA: Crime crackdown extends to police

The major anti-crime drive launched in the province of Buenos Aires (WR-03-27) is not only directed against the criminals out on the streets, but also against those within the provincial police force. 

The anticorruption division of the province's supreme court has requested the assistance of the FBI to track down bank accounts allegedly held by former police chief Alberto Sobrado in the US and the Bahamas. 

Sobrado had been relieved of his post in early July, a day after the local magazine Veintitrés published a report claiming that he had US$333,000 stashed away in an undeclared Bahamian bank account. When confronted by his boss, provincial security minister Juan Pablo Cafiero, Sobrado said that the money was a family legacy. 

Unconvinced, Cafiero dismissed him and took personal charge of the provincial police force -just as the media had started airing accusations against another senior police officer, Commissioner Aní­bal Degastaldi. He was said to have undisclosed interests in a chain of restaurants in and around Buenos Aires city. 

Degastaldi has been suspended from his duties as head of investigations in the city of Quilmes 'so that he may answer the charges made against him.' 

Government sources in La Plata, the provincial capital, say that this is just the beginning. Cafiero, they say, has ordered a close look into the financial affairs of about 50 senior police officers.

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