Argentinian ex-minister arrested after ‘trying to hide millions in monastery’

Former Argentine Public Works Minister Jose Lopez was caught by nuns trying to sneak millions in cash into their Argentine monastery Tuesday.

Police were called by nuns who spotted a man throwing bags onto the monastery grounds near Buenos Aires yesterday. The bags were being thrown by now-disgraced Lopez, who served in the government of Socialist President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who was in power from December, 2007, to December, 2015. Then they discovered money and jewels in the bags.

Dario Kubar, the area’s mayor, told reporters that authorities had found more than $7 million at the monastery.

BUENOS AIRES Argentina said on Wednesday consumer prices rose 4.2 percent in May from the prior month, above market expectations of 3.8 percent for the first official inflation data since President Mauricio Macri became president in December.

Macri recently vetoed a bill that would ban layoffs in the public and private sectors, saying it threatened to scare off badly needed investment.

Francis, who has long supported progressive causes in Argentina, and the centre-right president Macri have often found themselves on opposite sides of political debate.

An unnamed government official told La Nación that “the sum was calculated based on the expenditures of the organisation’s headquarters in Buenos Aires, on the salaries of 36 employees, and on equipment and maintenance expenses relating to a building of the former Administration of State Property”.

“Lopez managed everything that had to do with public works under the previous government”. “We are all surprised”.

Prosecutors have also said they are looking into the financial transactions at several hotels owned by the Kirchner family in the southern province of Santa Cruz, where Fernandez has lived since leaving office.