The Italian-Argentinian businessman Cristiano Rattazzi (74)former president of the company Fiat Argentinawas accused by the Criminal Justice of La Plata in the framework of an investigation sale of four-wheel drive vans with serious manufacturing defects of which they were awarebut they put them on the market to offer them through their network of official dealersamong them those of the capital of the province of Buenos Aires.
Rattazzi currently resides in Uruguay. He claimed that He moved to another country because Argentina pays a lot of taxes and fears running out of assets, as stated in a television interview with the channel The Nation+ in April 2022.
As detailed in the judicial file and confirmed by other sources in the case, one of the official concessionaires “sold several vehicles (4×4 trucks) in the span of three months that, according to the complainants, had been returned by their initial buyers to the Fiat automotive factory affected by a mechanical failure that was impossible to solve”.
The factory -according to the complaint- replaced the vehicles to the customers who complained, but the defective vans “reincorporated them into the commercial circuit, being the ‘Group’ of official dealers with five branches in this city, which proceeded to sell them in repeated occasions in the La Plata market”, is detailed in the case being processed in the Functional Instruction Unit 11 of La Plata by the prosecutor Alvaro Garganta.
“There are several victims presented in the case, you can no longer trust even an official dealer,” explained one of the sources consulted.
The investigation is in its initial stage. One of the possible scenarios is that the factory acknowledges the facts and compensates the group of victims. In this scenario, the criminal case could enter a mediation stage.
