Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of the ANDIS national disability agency, will stand trial on corruption charges, a federal judge confirmed on Monday.
Spagnuolo, 51, was sent to trial by Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello on charges of illicit association, collecting bribes, defrauding the state and dealings incompatible with the post of public official between 2023 and 2025.
The former chief of the Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad is not the only defendant in the case. Casanello’s decision also extends to Daniel Garbellini, Spagnuolo’s former second-in-command at ANDIS, as well as Miguel Ángel Calvete and Pablo Atchabahian, two individuals with close links to pharmaceutical chains.
In total, 19 defendants were sent to trial. The judge imposed different liens on their assets, including on former ANDIS officials and employees as well as private entrepreneurs, almost all of whom are accused of having played different roles in the alleged illicit association that infiltrated the agency.
The highest lien, of more than 202 million pesos, was imposed on Spagnuolo.
In his ruling, Casanello stated that in the first months of President Javier Milei’s administration “a fabric of institutional corruption, with its core in the irregular functioning of the Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad, was installed.”
For the judge, that fabric consisted of “external operators and top authorities acting jointly against the general interest and in favour of illicit private business.”
According to the ruling, ANDIS became a “road to enrichment for members of the organisation, in clear detriment of the public aims that should have guided their actions: the protection and care of the disabled."
“The existence of a criminal organisation consisting of public officials within ANDIS and private actors from the health sector has been accredited,” Casanello wrote, adding that “said organisation dedicated itself to diverting public funds via steered purchases and overpricing."
The judge also left the door open to a broader probe, noting that “the criminal scheme unveiled would appear to have even more diffuse margins and is not limited to the facts proven here."
“Within ANDIS itself, there exist indications that the group extended its logic of intermediaries, privileges and overpricing elsewhere,” he added.
“The scale of the business, the importance of the sums involved and a certain nonchalance, for example ignoring complaints from disappointed businessmen or dissatisfied officials, suggest that this was not an isolated phenomenon,” the ruling concluded.
Deeper investigation
Casanello warned that the investigation delegated to prosecutor Franco Picardi must be deepened, stating in Monday’s decision that responsibility could extend to “other levels of complicity."
“The investigation should not leave such aspects aside but should clarify and deepen them,” he wrote.
In voice messages that emerged last August, Spagnuolo claimed that a percentage of the kickbacks obtained from pharmaceutical chains, three percent, were destined for Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei. He also said he had warned President Milei of what was happening and blamed presidential advisor Eduardo ‘Lule’ Menem for the scheme.
However, the alleged recordings were not used as evidence by either Picardi or Casanello.
Martín Magram, a defence lawyer for Jonathan, Emmanuel and Eduardo Kovalivker of the Suizo Argentina pharmaceutical chain at the heart of the alleged scandal, argued that the origin of the recordings was illegal and called for the entire case to be declared null and void. Other defence lawyers joined that request.
On Monday, alongside ordering the defendants to stand trial, Casanello rejected those motions.
ANDIS was dissolved last December following denunciations of corruption that also implicated Karina Milei.
Spagnuolo resigned a few days after the accusations came to light. President Milei initially said the ex-ANDIS chief – formerly his personal lawyer – had lied in the recordings, although the suspect later argued in court that the audios had been manipulated.
Nevertheless, the prosecution sustained its case on the basis of other evidence. The recordings were not taken as proof by either the prosecutor or the judge and are not mentioned in Monday’s ruling, which was based on documentation seized in raids and testimony obtained during interrogations.
Karina Milei is not among the accused. However, the judge stated that the evidence suggests the corruption mechanisms at ANDIS “could involve another level of complicities” that must be investigated.
“The ANDIS case confirms point by point what we were denouncing,” lawyer Gregorio Dalbón, who filed the first criminal complaint last August, told AFP.
– TIMES/NA/AFP
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