Argentina Supreme Court orders $685 billion seizure of ex‑president Cristina Kirchner assets

Argentina's Supreme Court upheld a decree that the assets of former president Cristina Kirchner, businessman Lázaro Báez and other defendants in the Vialidad corruption case must be seized to cover a debt of 684,990,350,139.86 pesos (about $685 billion). The court rejected all extraordinary appeals, confirming the amount calculated by the Court’s accounting experts using the consumer‑price index from November 2022 to May 2025. The figure updates the original 84.8 billion‑peso confiscation set in the 2022 conviction for fraudulent public‑works contracts in Santa Cruz.

Earlier, the nation's chief prosecutor, Eduardo Casal, asked the same court to overturn a provisional court order that restored Kirchner’s widow's pension, arguing that the pension contradicts the absolute disqualification imposed by her six‑year prison sentence. Casal contended the pension restoration ignored the legal effects of the final corruption conviction. The pension issue remains pending as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the request.

The court’s decision solidifies the financial penalty for the Vialidad case and clears the way for the execution of the seizure against the convicted officials.