The claim was that the central bank had $ billion in “excess reserves.” [In fact, Mr. Redrado had refused to transfer the funds; so the government attempted to fire him, by another emergency decree on January 7, 2010 for misconduct and dereliction of duty; this attempt, however, failed, as it was unconstitutional.]
Besides sparking off one of the worst constitutional crises in Argentina since its economic meltdown in 2001, the chain of events led to a grave reassessment of its sovereign risk.