Lab owner, executives at heart of contaminated fentanyl scandal arrested

Businessman Ariel García Furfaro, the owner of two laboratories at the heart of a developing scandal, was arrested on Wednesday night as part of the investigation into the deaths of at least 96 people caused by contaminated fentanyl.

Federal Judge Ernesto Kreplak ordered the entrepreneur’s arrest along with that of the entire senior management and technical staff at the HLB Pharma and Ramallo laboratories. They are already behind bars.

The suspects are being held as the probe into “possible quality deviations” in the production of medicinal fentanyl batches linked to dozens of hospital deaths continues. 

García Furfaro was arrested in an operation involving the Gendarmerie and the Airport Security Police (PSA). Nine other raids were carried out simultaneously.

“We are facing a case of complex criminality involving a large number of victims and an organised business conglomerate,” said federal prosecutor María Laura Roteta in a court filing.

Last week, officials in President Javier Milei’s government estimated the number of deaths tied to fentanyl contaminated with bacteria since May at around 100. The prosecutor’s statement did not provide an exact figure, but local media reported 96.

Court sources say prosecutors believe there were serious flaws in the production of the drug.

García Furfaro, the owner of Laboratorios Ramallo SA and HLB Pharma SA, is accused of being responsible for the production and distribution, respectively, of batches later found to be contaminated with Klebsiella pneumoniae and Ralstonia pickettii.

‘Impunity is over’

“This is Ariel García Furfaro, owner of the laboratory behind the contaminated fentanyl. The last one still at large, now under arrest,” National Security Minister Patricia Bullrich wrote in a celebratory post on X, accompanied by a photo of García Furfaro in police custody. 

Hours earlier, she had shared pictures of other detainees from the laboratory, publicly shaming them.

“Those responsible for the lethal batch of fentanyl are behind bars. Impunity is over: now they will have to answer to the justice system, to the families, and to society as a whole,” wrote the official, who attempted to link those detained to the government’s political rivals.

HLB Pharma, in a statement issued last week, rejected the allegations, claiming that “contamination of the kind reported by some media outlets – with one or more multi-resistant bacteria typical of a hospital environment in a single batch – is simply not possible in a laboratory setting.”

Local media reported that the judge's order also included the businessman's brothers, Diego and Damián García; his mother, Nilda Furfaro, vice-president of HLB Pharma; the lab’s general director Javier Tchukran; and technical directors Carolina Ansaldi, Víctor Boccaccio and José Antonio Maiorano.

Executives at Laboratorios Ramallo, including company president Horacio Tallarico and deputy director Rodolfo Labrusciano, were also arrested.

Investigation

The scandal broke on May 12 when the Hospital Italiano in La Plata, located some 60 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, alerted Argentina’s ANMAT national drug authority to an unusual outbreak of hospital-acquired infections. 

Studies later confirmed that the bacteria isolated from infected patients’ samples matched genomically with those detected in fentanyl vials seized from the companies’ premises, prosecutors said.

The number of deaths has continued to climb as the probe has progressed. “The real scale of the outbreak is still not fully determined,” warned Roteta in her filing.

Investigators have identified a series of flaws in the “drug production processes” that allowed contaminated batches to enter the domestic market and be distributed nationwide. 

Experts have established a proven link between the infections and the deaths of multiple victims, supported by forensic examinations.

So far, fatalities have been recorded in hospitals in Buenos Aires Province and the capital Buenos Aires City, as well as in the provinces of Santa Fe, Formosa and Córdoba, Judge Kreplak said last week. 

Authorities also say cases are under investigation in Río Negro Province.

Local media have described the case as Argentina’s most significant health tragedy of the past century, surpassed only by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In late July, around 20 relatives of people who allegedly died after receiving contaminated fentanyl held a silent march to the Hospital Italiano in La Plata. Tearful family members carried signs reading “Justice for the victims of fentanyl.”

According to the World Health Organization, fentanyl is between 50 and 100 times more potent than morphine. 

In the United States, the drug continues to wreak havoc: an estimated 80,000 overdose deaths occurred there in 2024, of which 48,422 were linked to fentanyl.

– TIMES/AFP/NA/PERFIL