A new trial in the unified Hotesur and Los Sauces money laundering cases opened Friday in Buenos Aires against Argentine former President Cristina Kirchner, her son, Deputy Máximo Kirchner, and 17 other defendants.

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Federal Oral Tribunal 5 allowed the former President and the deputy to attend the opening session virtually, with the favorable vote of judges José Michilini and Fernando Machado Pelloni. The ruling sought to coordinate the deputy’s parliamentary schedule and simplify transfer logistics from the home where the former president is serving a sentence.

The remote format was granted exceptionally, only for the formal reading of the indictment and the order sending the case to trial. The tribunal said later hearings will be in person for all defendants.

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The case covers 19 people, including businessmen Lázaro Báez, Cristóbal López and Fabián de Sousa. Hearings are set for Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, including the January 2027 judicial recess, when the defense lawyers must attend in person every day.

With over 300 witnesses initially slated to testify, the dynamics of witness credibility and testimonies would play a crucial role in shaping the outcome, but it was reduced by agreement between the parties.

[JUSTICIA] Terminó la audiencia por Hotesur y Los Sauces: solicitaron que Cristina Kirchner sea juzgada como "jefa de una asociación ilícita, coautora de lavado de activos y admisión de dádivas", y su hijo, Máximo, fue imputado como "organizador del entramado criminal". https://t.co/3s4n4ORbW3 pic.twitter.com/VbWP9G9bve

— ElCanciller.com (@elcancillercom) October 23, 2026

Billing Under Scrutiny

The prosecution alleges that Kirchner’s family bought hotels and apartments, rented them to businessmen, mainly Báez, and laundered illegal money from public works.

The defense’s argument about the legitimacy of the funds is crucial. The defense, led by Carlos Beraldi and Ary Llernovoy, says the properties were bought with declared funds, including assets the family owned before Néstor Kirchner became Mayor of Río Gallegos, and that rentals were invoiced, banked and at market prices. The defense says similar claims were dismissed in three illicit enrichment cases. None of these claims has been tested at trial, and the defendants are presumed innocent.

Lawyer Carlos Beraldi maintained from the start that the hotels operated, collected and paid taxes like any other business. In September 2023, Chamber I of the Federal Chamber of Cassation revoked a previous dismissal and ordered that the trial go ahead.

The merged file brings together two fronts. Hotesur concerns the family’s hotel operation, while Los Sauces covers the real estate company at the center of the billing accusation.

The Cassation court removed the two judges who had dismissed the case and left only Palliotti, the magistrate who had voted to convict Cristina and Máximo Kirchner.

The same account recalls that in November 2021 judges Adrián Grünberg and Daniel Obligado dismissed the case against all defendants, with Adriana Palliotti dissenting, relying on an accounting expert report that found no harm. In September 2023, the Cassation Chamber overturned that decision and ordered a trial.

The opening of the process was preceded by an episode described as embarrassing. The Cassation court ordered the Federal Oral Tribunal 5 to merge the Hotesur and Los Sauces cases into a single proceeding and to begin it this Friday.

It is the first time in the country’s history that the Cassation court has dictated how a trial must be conducted, a power that normally belongs to each oral tribunal. Political pressure mounted after a Supreme Court resolution, and the judges had only 72 hours to unify the files. The order left the tribunal with no margin to set its own calendar.

The core of the Los Sauces case is the billing of the family’s real estate firm. According to the accusation, 88% of everything the company collected between 2009 and 2016 came from businesses controlled by Báez and from the Indalo Group.

The Hotesur portion of the merged case has not yet been read in court. The next hearings, set for October 26 and October 30, will determine how the combined process advances.

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Text reads: “When there is political persecution, the times in the judiciary are always electoral.”

Russia's state-backed payment firm A7 took in at least 283 tons of cash rubles, worth more than $14 billion, between November 2024 and July 2025, and turned much of it into payments to China that hide where the money came from, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Russian investigative outlet Proekt reported on 21 October, citing leaked internal records.

Cut off from Western banks over its war against Ukraine, Russia now moves money the way drug gangs launder theirs: cash goes in, and clean-looking wire transfers come out abroad. The overlap is literal.

Last year, UK investigators found that a network laundering British drug gangs' cash had bought a Kyrgyz bank that was handling payments for Promsvyazbank, Russia's state defense bank. That same bank co-owns A7, which "is also likely to facilitate cash-based money laundering," anti-money-laundering expert George Voloshin told ICIJ. On 1 October, the US Treasury named A7 a "significant transnational criminal organization." Most of the market cash pays Chinese suppliers, and China supplies about 90% of the high-priority Western-restricted items Russia imports for its weapons. Drone makers working for the Russian army are among A7's clients, Proekt found in April.

From market stalls to a defense bank vault

Much of the cash came from Moscow's giant Sadovod market, where broker teams known as "departments" collect bags of rubles from traders, the records show. Vans take the numbered bags to an A7 office, where about 50 cashiers count the money before it is trucked to Promsvyazbank. The bank vaults it and credits A7. At its peak, A7 handled at least 58 tons of cash a month.

Russia's central bank has flagged the problem itself. Money of unknown origin comes "primarily" from Moscow's wholesale and retail markets and from illegal crypto exchanges, a senior Central Bank official said in September, as quoted by ICIJ.

Clean money for Chinese factories

A7 then orders shell companies outside Russia to pay its clients' suppliers, mostly Chinese exporters. The money moves through Kyrgyzstan, largely via the state-owned Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the wire transfers carry no trace of cash or of Russia. The records list accounts at ICBC, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and China Construction Bank. One $287,000 transfer went through Standard Chartered's Hong Kong branch with "Sadovod" recorded as the client.

Chinese banks began refusing Russia-linked payments in December 2023 under the threat of US secondary sanctions. Stripping the funds of their origin makes them easier for Chinese banks to accept, illicit-finance expert Zachary Tvarozna told ICIJ. "The only company that sees everything is A7 itself," Voloshin said.

A7, Promsvyazbank, the Chinese banks, and Kyrgyzstan's economy ministry did not answer ICIJ's questions. A7 has publicly rejected the US accusations, saying it runs "a modern, multi-tiered compliance system."

Sanctioned, but still moving

A7 launched in late 2024, co-owned by Promsvyazbank and led by Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, a "sanctioned and convicted criminal fraudster," according to the US Treasury. Ukraine sanctioned its network in February, and the UK followed in May. A7 claimed to have moved more than 7.5 trillion rubles, about 13% of Russia's 2025 foreign trade transactions, and its network also helped Iran sell oil and buy weapons, the Treasury said.

Sanctions did hit A7's crypto side. Daily volume of its ruble token A7A5 fell 96% from its peak by June 2026, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic found. The cash channel is harder to touch: Western banks can see where A7's money lands, but not where it starts.