Amira Yoma

On a television program in October 2012, Yoma spoke about the incident with the suitcases:

In November 2009 while Yoma was driving her car to a friend's house, she was intercepted and her vehicle was fired at twice before she escaped. Then, at 3:00 am, she received a phone call in which she was threatened. "Enough doing press. We're going to kill you. You are going to have to leave the country."

Yoma was in court on another charge in 2004, this time for alleged irregularities in credits contracted by the family tannery Yoma SA, known as the Yoma Group, with national, provincial, and city banks. The family's entire case would be dismissed that September by federal judge Claudio Bonadio.

On 7 May 1999 she became part of the orbit of Antonio Erman González in the Ministry of Labor with a salary of 4,000 pesos. After this, according to her statement, she rejected a proposal to be an advisor to the Ministry of Social Development offered by then minister José Figueroa, "because it did not seem ethical to have another contract." She became unemployed after González resigned as minister.

After several years with a low profile, Yoma returned to the government in August 1998, when she was appointed as an advisor to the White Helmets Commission for six months. The government justified this appointment, which she celebrated on Legrand's program on 18 August 1998 and which carried a monthly salary of 1,730 pesos, based on her mastery of Arabic. Her strong personality brought her into conflict with White Helmets leader Octavio Frigerio [es] , so she left the post. As a result, she asked her ex-brother-in-law to relocate her, and she was eventually hired by the then Ministry of Labor and Social Security. When she was discovered by the press in a new political position, she explained her hiring: "I do different things, but I cannot speak of them."

In her declaration before the Senate on 1 December 1994, she would take responsibility for issuing a passport to arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar. In 1995 she married journalist Jorge "Chacho" Marchetti and, that same year, she would travel to Spain to meet with the Narcogate judge, Baltasar Garzón.

In July 1992, Yoma was arrested and released on bail on the charge of bringing suitcases with "narco-dollars" into the country. Her case would eventually be dismissed by the Argentine court in April 1994 at the request of the prosecutor Carlos Stornelli and recorded by chamber secretary Gabriel Cavallo [es] , despite the fact that the Spanish justice system continued with the international arrest warrant.

On 1 March 1991, the Spanish magazine Cambio 16 published that Judge Garzón was investigating figures of power very close to Carlos Menem, including Amira Yoma, Ibrahim al Ibrahim, and Mario Caserta, Undersecretary of Public Services. According to an informant, the job of Yoma and Ibrahim was to pick up suitcases of money in New York and take them to Buenos Aires as sealed baggage, where they were then collected and taken to Uruguay.

In the 1990s, Cali Cartel accountant Ramón Humberto Puentes was arrested in Punta del Este at the request of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, on suspicion of smuggling cocaine into Uruguay. Among his belongings was a hardcover notebook that exposed figures of Argentine power at the time. Amira Yoma was mentioned as moving a "cargo" from New York, in an entry reading "Amira 720 (– 50)".

Also in 1989, after Menem's election as president, Yoma would be designated Director of National Hearings, the most prominent office of the Casa Rosada after the president's. In the early years of the administration she was an emblematic figure in official meetings and among Menem's favorites. In 1991 she was forced to resign due to a drug money laundering scandal, which would also affect her ex-husband Ibrahim al Ibrahim, who was in charge of the Ezeiza customs office.

In 1983 she began working with Carlos Menem as Director of Hearings in La Rioja Province, then went on to hold a position at the provincial bank. In late 1986 she married Ibrahim al Ibrahim, and they lived in Wilde until 1989 when they moved to Buenos Aires. They divorced later that year.

Amalia Beatriz "Amira" Yoma (born 18 August 1952) is an Argentine political advisor and restaurateur. She is best known for being the Director of Hearings in the presidential administration of her then brother-in-law Carlos Menem, and for being charged in the drug money laundering scandal which came to be called Yomagate.