Los Menem SA: How one of Argentina’s foremost political families invoices the state

With just a few days to go before the closing of electoral lists for the Buenos Aires Province elections, with the telephones buzzing and party infighting hushed up, a tender of almost four billion pesos came to light. 

The winning company, Tech Security SRL, belonging to the Menem family, won a private security contract to guard the central office of Banco Nación for the next two years. In practical terms it is a continuation for the same company already performing the service but this time there is an uncomfortable extra detail – one of that company’s partners, right up until four days before Javier Milei took office in December 2023, was no less than Martín Menem, who is today a key part of the La Libertad Avanza’s government, serving as Congress Speaker.

This is only the latest and best-known of the Menem businesses with a political angle. It comes at a time when the family – which was relegated to a backseat for years after the second term of late former president Carlos Menem came to an end – has returned to power. That has come via a key conduit, the President’s sister, Karina Milei, who officially serves as presidential chief-of-staff. 

Basking in the sun of government support, the three Menem brothers – Martín Menem, Adrián Menemand Fernando Menem – and their cousin, Eduardo ‘Lule’ Menem, have helped to construct a political society that is interwoven with beneficial business: ‘Los Menem S.A.’

Each sibling has their role in the Milei entourage: Martín, in the Chamber of Deputies; Lule, as a top Casa Rosada advisor and Adrián as a collaborator behind the scenes. Fernando, for the most part, steers clear of politics. 

According to the Official Gazette, on December 6, 2023, Martín Menem transferred his Tech Security shares to his brother Adrián. But nobody in the government took this gesture as a real withdrawal – more something of a formality. 

Tech Security was founded in 2005 by Fernando and his friend Pablo Vázquez, a neighbour of his in Núñez. Their link is mostly coincidental – Vázquez’s father owned a bar on the corner of Lidoro Quinteros and Pablo Ricchieri, only 60 metres away from the Menem home. Fernando often stopped by to drink a coffee. The relationship with the owner’s son grew, first as a chat across the counter and then later as a business company. Today, 20 years later, Vázquez owns 51 percent of Tech Security, Fernando 34 percent and the eldest Menem brother 15 percent. 

Fernando and Pablo also put together another company called Purgato, which is dedicated to cleaning offices. Both figure with 25 percent of the capital each. 

In 2019, Purgato clinched a tender at the INCAA (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales) state film company. In 2004, Fernando had tried his luck in another sector, founding Tech One Corporation, a company registered for both wholesale and retail trade, as well as the repair of vehicles and motorcycles.

Tech Security has grown steadily over the years. Apart from the recent contract with Banco Nación, it has already been active in football clubs like River Plate and Racing, at the AFA (Argentine Football Association) and in various other state departments. Its specialty: security at mass events and institutional offices. 

 

The beginnings

The leap in the visibility of these companies was parallel to the political ascent of the libertarian Menems but the first approach to the Milei universe came long before talk of national posts. 

In 2021, Tech Security was picked to guard the bunker of the Milei midterm election campaign at Luna Park, around the time the La Libertad Avanza leader was elected national deputy. The campaign launch was a festive mixture of political meeting and rock show with the Menem family in charge of its security. It was the first show of confidence between two families who over time have ended up joined at the hip. 

When Milei came to power, Tech Security maintained its pace of contracts in the private sector (which today represent 80 percent of its invoicing). But it has also positioned itself as one of the few firms in that area with direct arrival to government offices. 

Within the libertarian bickering, Martín and ‘Lule’ Menem operate as Karina Milei’s shock troops at the federal level. They command territory and carry a surname. On the other side, top presidential advisor Santiago Caputo observes and takes note. Within his entourage they see the Menem advance as a bid to co-opt structures with the advantage of having a Peronist pedigree. Yet the two factions are at war. 

The Menem family business did not kick off with the libertarian landing although its arrival in government gave it new life. The heart of its business web lies downtown on Calle Talcahuano, a street a few metres off Avenida Córdoba, where the historic Menem law firm functions. 

Out of that legal bunker, which maintains the family name as a trademark, operate many of the companies comprising the portfolio of Eduardo Menem’s sons: Martín, Fernando and Adrián. Beyond Tech Security, the Menem universe also includes consultancy firms, real-estate developers, financial companies and even food supplement labs. 

According to the most recent sworn statement presented by Martín Menem before the authorities, the Congress Speaker has shares in several firms. One of them is PGC SRL, a consultancy firm which channels much of the legal and administrative advice of the family group and which was created in 2005. Libertador Uno, a real-estate developer also dating back to 2005, also appears. In the financial sector figures Mimada SA, a company created in 2012 according to its official documents. And if politics is a marathon, there is also a sporting connection – Martín Menem has declared a 22-percent ownership stake in the brand of former golf-player Daniel Vancsik, today serving as a national deputy for Misiones. In 2007, the Menem brothers had created the company Golf Management. 

The oldest and “fittest” side of the Martín Menem portfolio is food supplements. Under names like Gen Tech, Insulow and TR Nutrition, the deputy made an incursion at the end of the last century into the health business with products geared to sporting and public fitness. 

The Menem combo – law, security, sports and money – explains part of the business track record of the family, which moved in stealth while La Libertad Avanza took shape. The companies already existed before Martín plunged into politics but today they have gained a new dimension – they have passed from being private business to forming part of the radar of power. 

On that road the surname of Menem has again been installed, although with another new look. 

 

The latest moves

The fourth Menem – ‘Lule,’ who is called Eduardo like his uncle – does not figure in the direct genealogical tree but in practice functions as an older brother for Adrián, Martín and Fernando. 

Lule’s history runs parallel to Eduardo Menem’s sons and, at various stages, it is intertwined. He was born in Argentina in 1964 and with the military dictatorship in 1976 in power, his parents Mohamed and Fátima decided to emigrate to Syria. At the age of 15, with compulsory military service knocking at his door and that country plunged into conflict, his family sent a letter to La Rioja asking if somebody could take care of the adolescent. 

The reply came from Eduardo Menem’s home – it was his wife Susana Valente who said that she would receive him. That is how Eduardo Menem, accompanied by Julio ‘Chiche’ Aráoz, travelled to Yabrud in Syria to bring him back. From that day on, Lule has constructed a political life at the service of his uncle. Today he is the right-hand man of Karina Milei, the guardian of the hard core of libertarian power. But Lule has also stayed close to a murky zone: the collateral business in orbit around Martín.

One of the most commented upon cases involves Sergio Andrés Aguirre, Martín’s partner in TR Nutrition SRL. In April, 2024, Aguirre created a new company: Htech Innovation SA, coincidentally also using the word “tech”, like Tech Security and Gen Tech. 

On paper, Htech Innovation is chaired by María Casandra Mirabelli, Aguirre’s mother. On July 5, three months later, Aguirre entered the Casa Rosada together with Virginia Montero, trustee of the OSPRERA healthcare scheme of the farm hands’ union. The meeting was with Lule Menem and lasted almost two hours – it features on the official register of Casa Rosada audiences. 

A few days later, on July 18, Htech Innovation broadened its range of services to include consultancy services. The switch was surgical – the healthcare scheme contracted the recently reconverted company for over 40 million pesos, as stated by the second invoice of the brand-new company dated November 6, according to the news portal El Disenso. That same day Montero presented her resignation for unknown reasons. 

One relevant detail of this story is that the OSPRERA trustee Marcelo Petroni has as his private secretary Aguirre’s mother Mirabelli, who thus fulfils the double role of secretary and provider. 

 

Behind the scenes

The brother with the lowest profile in this new stage is, paradoxically, the only one who once seemed destined to be Menem’s political heir. 

Adrián Menem was a national deputy for La Rioja Province between 1999 and 2007. He walked the corridors of Congress in the worst years for the Menem surname and then decided to return to the family law firm. 

During the end of the Kirchnerite cycle, Adrián made some television appearances as a panel guest on political programmes but he quickly chose to go behind the scenes. 

Despite holding no recognised seat today, Adrián is the least visible but most functional cog in the machine. From the historic law offices on Talcahuano street, he manages that part of the business which his brother Martín cannot oversee or sign for formal reasons and he also helps out with some meetings when necessary. 

Adrián is an operator in the shadows who knows the tempos and key political actors. In the corridors of power, an increasingly installed myth is fed – that Adrián is the true brain of the Menem clan at this stage. 

Day-to-day work at the law office is in the hands of Adolfo Verra, Adrián’s friend and faculty classmate. Among the most sensitive cases one is multi-million – the bid to collect US$13 million from the businessman Matías Garfunkel in fees. Verra and Martín Menem advised him in his divorce from Mariana Gersztein, a separation of goods with US$500 million at stake. The claim is for 2.5 percent of that sum, small change on Garfunkel’s scale. 

This new Menem brood is weathered in the ups and downs of public exposure. They know that doing business with the state can carry consequences. Today, Tech Security has an equation more geared to the private sector – some 80 percent of its invoicing comes from clubs, companies and events with hardly 20 percent linked to public contracts. There was a time when the balance marked 50/50 but the thermometer has changed. 

The Banco Nación tender, far from being a resounding triumph, has brought complications – with scandal already on the agenda, the bank itself requested that the current contract be prolonged until this month (Tech Security currently provides security at the central office of Banco Nación). The reason: they will consult the Anti-Corruption Office before its official renewal. 

 

The return

The Menem brothers grew up in a household accustomed to power but they also lived through the period in which their surname was in greatest discredit. In the initial years of Kirchnerism, when figures from the Menem presidency were singled out as part of the decadence of the 1990s, Martín Menem went to theatre classes with Raúl Serrano and used his mother’s surname: Valente. That is how current Gualeguaychú Mayor Mauricio Davico got to know him. Martín sought him out as a friend precisely because he did not know who he was. 

Now with the libertarian revival of the 1990s and the success of the Menem streaming series, the relatives of the late ex-president feel that they can come out of the closet. Being a Menem is something cool again.​