Wikipedia
The maletinazo, valijagate, or "suitcase scandal" was a 2007 scandal involving Venezuela and Argentina, souring friendship between the countries.
The scandal began when Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan-US entrepreneur, arrived in Argentina on a private flight hired by Argentine and Venezuelan state officials carrying US$800,000 in cash which he failed to declare.
Venezuela had enacted strict foreign currency controls in 2003. CADIVI, the commission established by the Venezuelan government to regulate currency, prohibits taking more than US$10,000 in cash out of the country without declaring the money. Individual Venezuelans can only take US$500 or €400 cash out of the country in a single trip and there is a yearly quota of US$2,500 on credit card expenditures; a special government permit is needed to take additional US dollars out of the country.
The scandal escalated with suggestions that: Wilson was part of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's personal entourage; the money was meant to help finance, and thus influence, the Argentine presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; the money was meant to bribe Argentine officials in energy deals for Venezuelan natural gas; or, the suitcase was intended for money-laundering. No allegations were ever proven, and the case was closed in 2015 due to the statute of limitations.
The scandal gained further notoriety when María del Luján Telpuk, the Argentine airport police officer who discovered the unreported currency, posed naked a few months later in the Argentine and Venezuelan versions of Playboy magazine.
The word Maletinazo comes from maletín (the Spanish word for suitcase or briefcase) and the suffix -azo which implies intensity or magnitude. The scandal is also known as valijagate, maletagate and maletíngate (following the -gate construction and the Spanish word maleta or valija for suitcase or briefcase).