In an interview in June 2025 Milei’s former personal lawyer, Diego Spagnuolo, was speaking to the mother of a child with a disability saying: “Just because you had a disabled child, that’s your family’s problem, not a state issue.” Diego Spagnuolo is director of the Argentine “National Agency for Disabled People” (ANDIS, by its Spanish initials). ANDIS under Spagnuolo had other priorities!
At the express request of the Argentine president, Javier Milei, the job of ANDIS director had been given to his personal lawyer because, you know, you can trust this guy! Now Spagnuolo was invoking the president’s Chainsaw mechanism cutting benefits for disable children, in this case, a smart autistic bespectacled 12-year-old called Ian Moche, her kid.
Recent leaks of a sound recording of a conversation between Spagnuolo and another have sparked lawsuits that claim that while Spagnuolo was saving pennies in children’s health services he knew all about illegal payments (of nearly a million per month) to the president’s sister from public health purchases of drugs from laboratories. Endemic corruption in his own Department of Health had not gone away with the Libertarian revolution in Argentina, rather it had accelerated (an extra 3% cut for Karina to be precise). In the audio we can hear him telling his dinner partner (a man who has not yet been disclosed) that he had all of Karina’s WhatsApp audio messages saved; that the scheme to steal money had expanded under the libertarians and that he was not taking the fall for this.
The audio leak is very revealing indeed. It will present acute difficulties for Javier Milei and for his sister Karina who is Secretary to the President (to her own brother). Spagnuolo, the tapes reveal, was aware of flows of bribes happening between the powerful pharmaceutical laboratory sector and members of Javier Milei’s own government. These flows were being run by a team set up, the lawyer indicates, by previous government operatives, a team run by an unnamed operator under former president Macri. “They’re on the take”, he emphasises “Están chorreando”. In the audio the lawyer tells how the take was been divided 1% for me, 1% for the operative 3% for Karina and so on… This was the ordinary drugs but there was much when the drugs are discounted, all the discounted drugs were run through the intermediary Suizo Argentina. The split had changed, the main part of it was going — according to Spagnuolo — to the presidents office, to Milei’s sister.
According to the legal filing, filed Wednesday 20th August in Buenos Aires with Criminal Federal court 11. Listed on the filing are Javier and his sister Karina Milei, Spagnuolo (of course) and two alleged beneficiaries and/or co-conspirators mentioned explicitly in the recording. One is the head of a chain of pharmacies —a man who is reported to have an excellent Ferrari collection— Eduardo Kovalivker, a pharmacist trained in Israel who is head of Suizo Argentina, a local firm that handles pharmaceutical products. The last person in the list is Carlos Menem-Menem, who goes by the nickname ‘Lule’. Lule is a nephew of the former president of Argentina, Carlos Saúl Menem (RIP).
Martín Menem, another cousin is also cited in the legal filing. He too is a nephew of the deceased president but he is a very key player in Milei’s government. He has been very useful to Milei protecting him from another legal matter involving the theft of $280Mn. in a rug pull crypto-fraud for a “utility coin” called $Libra (locally referred to as the “Cryptogate” controversy, the drugs issue has become called ‘Spagnuologate’ but it is harder to spell and doesn’t have the same ring to it). The $Libra, a “utility-coin” —supposedly to promote business in Argentina— was promoted by the President himself from his twitter account. CryptoGate has embroiled him in lawsuits in the US and Argentina from angry investors who lost the 1/4 billion in the rug-pull. One of Martín Menem’s rôles (as speaker of the house) has been the prevention of the formation of a house investigation commission into the cryptogate fraud (by manipulating quorums). Martín retweeted his cousin Lule’s innocence.
Carlos Saúl is considered ‘jinxed’ because of the chaos he caused with financial collapse of 2001, so much so that it is considered extremely bad luck to say his surname out loud. Menemism is a thing in Argentina. All of the recent governments that took over power after the 2002 collapse are Menemist from Duhalde to the Kitchners to Macri and even Milei. You can see this because they call his finance minister a hero but also because they use the same operatives to move the bribe money. Lule Menem is Karina’s persona secretary. Carlos Saúl famously also drove a red Ferrari back in the free wheeling days of the 1990’s.
Some calculations based on the numbers mentioned in the leaked audios indicate that ANDIS alone laundered a minimum of 16 million since 2024, and ANDIS is a ver small part of the ministry for health. The price of local medications have jumped about 250% since Milei took office a year and half ago. Some of that profit, it seems, bubbled up to the top to Ms. Milei which may also be part of the reason no price controls were put on national drug supplies (and why those in existence had been largely eliminated) even for monopolized drugs with no competition in this pure libertarian market.
When Milei took power his original plan was to put the Department of Health in his new mega Government Department which Milei calls “Human Capital”. As a libertarian Milei hates the very concept of public health; libertarians are somewhat live and let die. All health services for them must be private. If you can’t afford private, well, that’s your family’s problem.
When Milei took power it was the power of the Argentine pharmaceutical laboratories that pulled the Department of Health back out of Human Capital. The labs had arrangements to supply pharmaceuticals to public hospitals and other institutions. The release of this audio clip may help us to understand what kind of arrangements had been set up. Spagnuolo was explicit that specific purchase arrangements have been funneled (probably illegally) through Kovalivker’s chain of pharmacies called Suizo Argentina, yet another link to the Menem family.
Milei took power to fight corruption but instead of fighting corruption he argued to reduce the size of the state. The majority of Argentines are extremely tired of corruption but family is family. When the corruption scandal hit Spagnuolo was fired and nobody said a thing. The next week the President’s office, and the Menem and Milei families in particular will fight bank. In the meantime the legal process will likely be stalled. It will be difficult for Milei to explain his own family corruption, he shall leave this to slicker operators. Elections are coming, Milei faces his first mid-terms in October (hence the timing of this leak). This second corruption scandal will not help. It increases the chance that his own party will push him and his sister aside as an election liability.
– Nepotism (Check! Jobs for your sister and for your personal lawyer, Menem-Menem-Menem)
– Humanism (No! Kids with disabilities don’t matter; it’s the mother’s fault)
– Corruption (Check!)
– Social services (No! The state must be destroyed but first my sister and my lawyer take their take)
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