Reidel justifies debt clearance amid nuclear plant graft claims

Nucleoeléctrica Argentina chief Demian Reidel has had better days, but is attempting to put to bed rumours of corruption,

Earlier this year, a series of alleged acts of corruption during his stewardship of the state firm overseeing the nation’s nuclear plants were denounced. The scandal resulted in two managers of his confidence being sidelined. 

Nevertheless, the accusations against Reidel did not stop there. Now it has become known that in just 18 days, the official has managed to pay off personal debts of 825 million pesos – a sum equivalent to over 80 net salaries of his current post. 

The figure triggered all kinds of suspicions and he has decided to respond in public: "I don’t usually reply to operations but that’s it. Here are the papers," he wrote in a lengthy post on his X social network account.

"In 2018 I bought with my own funds a share in a real-estate development in Argentina. I went selling it off in stages without haste: in March 2023 and December 2024. In 2025 I sold another chunk and while that sale was advancing, I took out a bridging loan against that asset in order to have liquidity – that is 'the debt,'" wrote Reidel.

"Last December 15 I sold off that chunk for US$770,000. Both purchase and sale were with my own funds. I collected and cancelled the debt. It’s a transparent operation, totally documented, with signatures certified by a public notary and contained in my sworn statement. There you have the deeds of the sale," detailed the official.

The El Disenso web portal was the first to verify Reidel’s debts via Central Bank reports, ratifying that the physicist and friend of President Javier Milei was described until mid-January as a person with a "high risk of insolvency" within the financial system. 

In total, he had a debt of 825 million pesos with Banco Macro but managed to pay it off all at once.

Reidel’s future

The unpaid debt emerged in the middle of a scandal permeating Reidel’s management of the state firm. 

In the last few months Nucleoeléctrica Argentina’s Integrity Committee has received internal denunciations of possible acts of corruption, as well as a judicial presentation opening up in the Campana federal courtroom. All these cases described tenders being steered and overpriced.

Rumours have started to circulate in the last few days as to Reidel’s future within the government. Some claim Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei trying to convince her brother to fire the official. Reidel is reportedly in the cross-hairs not only for accusations of corruption but also questions of management.

Reidel was in the limelight last October when announced plans to construct a huge data centre dedicated to artificial intelligence in Patagonia in conjunction with the Argentine company Sur Energy, with an estimated investment of some US$25 billion. 

The NA-SA chief was presented as the key official in the project of which nothing more has since been heard.

According to La Política Online website, OpenAI sources have assured the project to be "ridiculous" and that the video taped by their CEO Sam Altman was just "propaganda for Javier Milei."

Although Reidel’s exit is favoured by Karina Milei, firing him would be a complex task. The official is a friend of Milei and has even, as explained by the President, spent long hours with him deep into the night rewriting world economic theory.

Suspicions surround Atucha I and II tenders

In a recent report, Perfil detailed cases of alleged corruption early this year after it gained access to an internal denunciation presented to NASA’s Integrity Committee. 

In a writ, Juan Pablo Nolasco Sáenz – the manager of the Atucha I-II nuclear plants – accused company authorities of favouring a firm in a tender for cleaning services with other similar presentations in the pipeline, it later emerged.

Last month, Perfil revealed that these accusations had reached court with the Campana federal courtroom processing a lawsuit describing similar situations at nuclear power plants.

Until now Reidel has only spoken in public about his debt and not about these accusations, which have resulted in the ouster of NA-SA general manager Marcelo Famá and Administrative Coordination manager Hernán Pantuso, both considered to be supreme confidants of Reidel.

– TIMES/PERFIL