Argentina Special: Buy a 4% Bond or Go to Jail

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner wants tax evaders hiding about $160 billion in dollars to help finance Argentina’s oil-producing ambitions. Her offer: Buy a 4 percent bond or face the prospect of jail time.

The tax authority announced the plan May 7, highlighting its information-sharing agreements with 40 nations and warning Argentines who don’t use the three-month amnesty window that they risk fines or arrest. Evaders have two options for their cash and the only one paying interest will be a dollar bond due in 2016 to finance YPF SA (YPF), the state oil company. The 4 percent rate is a third the average 13.85 yield on Argentine debt and less than the 4.6 percent in emerging markets.

A year after seizing YPF, Fernandez is funneling more money into the nation’s energy industry as the government struggles to boost production from the world’s third-biggest shale oil reserves. With Argentina already committed to pumping $2 billion of central bank reserves into a fund for energy investments and the highest borrowing costs in emerging markets keeping it from issuing debt abroad, the government is eyeing the billions of undeclared dollars that Argentines hold to help shore up reserves that have dwindled to a six-year low. Read more >>

Argentina: Hundreds of troops deployed to combat looting

Argentine authorities have sent hundreds of troops to the southern city of Bariloche after a spate of looting. At least three supermarkets in the popular ski resort were targeted, causing panic among local residents and tourists.

Dozens of people, many with their faces covered, broke into the supermarkets stealing electronics, toys and clothes. The government blamed small criminal gangs but local authorities pinned the attacks on anarchist organisations.

"With this type of action, these groups have been trying to paint a false picture of social and political collapse," the provincial authorities said in a statement.

Local police said other shops and depots on the outskirts of the town were also targeted by looters. All shops closed after the thefts.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been in constant communication with the province's governor, according to her spokesman Juan Manuel Abal Medina.

He said the Bariloche attacks were linked to the sabotage of power lines earlier on Thursday in the neighbouring province of Neuquen. Read more >>