Argentina’s federal court seizes Sur Finanzas’ black Ferrari California as Maximiliano Vallejo’s case moves forward

Argentina’s federal court in Lomas de Zamora has seized the black Ferrari California convertible associated with Maximiliano Ariel Vallejo, the head of the financial holding Sur Finanzas, while judges decide his procedural status. For high-risk PSPs, the relevant part is not the car itself; it is the package of asset seizures, raids, and money-laundering allegations around a payments-linked business.

1. Judge Luis Armella ordered the seizure on August 6 at the request of prosecutor Cecilia Incardona, judicial sources told Clarín. The car was valued at about US$ 320,000 and had originally been registered in the name of a company in the holding before Vallejo “sold” it to a 73-year-old retiree.
2. Ten days after raids on different Sur Finanzas branches, a man identified as the retiree’s son appeared in the case in December 2025 and said he was a good-faith buyer of the luxury vehicle. Prosecutor Incardona argued that Corrado “could not properly prove the lawfulness of the funds” used by his mother, who lives on a pension, to buy the car.
3. That led to a search of an apartment complex in Puerto Madero, CABA, where investigators found the Ferrari parked in the garage, covered and without license plates. At the buyer’s home, police found the vehicle’s documents and plates inside a safe.
4. Investigators also identified multiple vehicles linked to César Vallejo and/or companies connected to him, including an Audi Q2, a Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Coupé AMG-Line, an Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce 2.0, a Porsche Macan model 2025, a Porsche 718 Boxster model 2023, two BMW 320i cars, and several others. Three Mercedes-Benz cash-in-transit trucks, a Jeep Renegade, and other vehicles were also seized during the December 2025 raids.
5. Vallejo was questioned two months ago in the case, where he is charged with money laundering and criminal association over his ties to football clubs. He said: “I am innocent. I did not launder money or carry out any financial intermediation.” The new head of the federal court in Lomas de Zamora, Juan Tomás Rodríguez Ponte, who took office on Thursday, will now decide Vallejo’s procedural status and that of the other defendants.

There is also a separate line of inquiry based on a complaint filed by ARCA in November last year, alleging an evasion figure of 3.300 million pesos. For PSPs and acquirers, that is the real signal: once a payments business becomes part of a laundering and tax-evasion file, the asset list tends to get longer before it gets shorter.