Scatturice and Hadad: the invisible link

Everyone says so. It is rumoured in the corridors of networks and newsrooms. Journalists and businessmen comment on it at lunches and events.

Leonardo Scatturice, Milei’s favourite businessman – an alleged former spy turned multi-millionaire who is now the President’s main lobbyist before Donald Trump’s government in Washington, has historic ties dating back some years with Infobae media tycoon Daniel Hadad.

Sources close to Hadad acknowledge a friendship with Scatturice, but deny any kind of deals or business between them. They claim the mogul is solely devoted to Infobae, Argentina’s most popular online news outlet. In the circles of those close to Scatturice, who is also the owner of low-cost carrier Flybondi, they also deny a business relationship and only vouch for real-estate operations that may have involved both parties. Such transactions “are public and have been duly recorded with US authorities,” they underline.

What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours

On December 28, 2017, Daniel Hadad sold apartment 1603, located in the south tower at the Continuum complex in South Beach, Miami, located at 100 South Pointe Drive. It was bought by the company “Continuum South 1603 LLC,” a firm created specifically for the occasion two months earlier. Scatturice is the company’s only member and director.

As clarified to Noticias by Scatturice’s circle, “the purchase of property does not entail any business relationship.”

However, there are some eye-catching details.

Firstly, despite having been created two months before the apartment was purchased, the company headquarters were the very same domicile: 100 South Pointe Drive, Unit 1603.

That is, Scatturice set up a company domiciled at an apartment still belonging to Daniel Hadad, which he would buy two months later. He did the same thing with “MDELM LLC,” another firm created one month later.

A source close to Hadad stated that Scatturice rented the apartment before he bought it.

Secondly, Hadad lent Scatturice money for the operation. A US$1,400,000 loan and a mortgage was created and taken on by Scatturice on March 5, 2020. From within his circle, they explained that the media boss lent the money he needed, because they are friends.

Thirdly, not only did Scatturice declare Hadad’s domicile as his own before buying it and for two different companies, but the reverse also happened. Hadad and his wife used the apartment 1603 address for their role as directors of another company, My Estates II Corp, many years after having sold it to Scatturice.

They continued to use the address until as late as 2023.

Worthy of a spy novel

That same unit, #1603 of Continuum South, was used from 2019 to 2024 as the headquarters of “C3 IG LLC,” a company first created on April 25, 2016.

Scatturice was a director of the firm, which is possibly a Florida subsidiary of C3 Consulting S.A. – an Argentine company created on January 12, 2012 by Scatturice and Flavio Cristian Chiari, which the now Flybondi owner was said for years to have conducted dodgy espionage and intelligence activities.

So, we have an apartment which belonged to Hadad, and which one of Scatturice’s companies bought with money lent by Hadad – the same apartment which Scatturice declared as his own two months before purchasing it and which Hadad claimed as his own until nearly six years after selling it to serve as the headquarters of the possible US subsidiary of a company suspected of undertaking covert intelligence work in Argentina since 2012.

Something doesn’t add up – Scatturice has always denied an official relationship with the State and Hadad has always denied an official relationship with the intelligence services.

C3 Consulting S.A. is the company which ex-spymaster Antonio ‘Jaime’ Stiuso was interested in in the famous so-called “Dark Star” case, in which he convinced federal judge Sergio Torres to endorse hours and hours of wiretapping to investigate some British spies who never surfaced. In 2015, Perfil published alleged messages by Hadad to Scatturice and the latter’s message to the Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) informing that journalist Jorge Lanata was travelling to the Seychelles on the lookout for Néstor Kirchner’s alleged unlawful assets. This was in August 2013, a time of crisis at Casa Rosada. During the wiretapping, Scatturice celebrated the potential arrival of a SIDE ally. He told his wife and Hadad himself. Yet he would always show his greatest enthusiasm to another friend and partner: Mario Héctor de la Fuente – the new son-in-law of Daniel Hadad since March 1 that same year.

Customs mafia

C3 Consulting S.A. was singled out by the circle of then-president Mauricio Macri as the cause of an anonymous report which got to then-security minister Patricia Bullrich in August 2016. Eventually, that report would force then-Customs agency chief Juan José Gómez Centurión out of office after the courts received reports from alleged SIDE operatives over alleged smuggling and ephedrine traffic from 2012 to 2015.

Centurión was reported in August 2016 for allegedly asking for a kickback. Where were the audio files of Bullrich’s report published exclusively? Infobae. His case was dismissed in merely two months while Gómez Centurión’s filings against the so-called “Customs mafia,” on the other hand, progressed, developing into a megacase. Slowly but steadily, the investigation continues to this day.

In one of its offshoots, known as the “removers’ mafia,” judge Marcelo Aguinsky prosecuted in May 2024 Aldo Javier Limardo, a character serving as co-director together with Scatturice for three offshore companies created at the same time as the report against Gómez Centurión.

They are GENS GROUP COMPANY LLC (November 18, 2016), GBIC LLC (November 22, 2016) and“ERAGON GROUP LLC (February 25, 2017). The Florida registry of commerce dissolved them in one fell swoop in September 2018 as they had not filed their due annual reports. What were they created for? And what was their activity?

Scatturice’s circle states that “all three companies were created with an expectation of business but, when that did not materialise, they were closed and never had any activity.” Yet the question remains: what was Scatturice, singled out as the manager of an intelligence operation against Gómez Centurión – who reported an alleged “Customs mafia” involving spies – doing, opening three offshore companies in Miami?

There’s more. While Scatturice and Chiari’s C3 in Argentina was suspected of operating against Gómez Centurión, Limardo became a resident agent and director of C3 IG LLC, C3’s alleged subsidiary in the United States, created at least a month after the first report by the former head of Customs. Limardo even registered the email of the “Venner Trade Company LLC,” the company for whose operations Aguinsky had prosecuted.

In February 2012, a month after creating the Argentine version C3, mentioned in relation to intelligence operations such as the one Gómez Centurión may have suffered, Scatturice and Chiari set up a subsidiary in Panama: C3 Consultings S.A., which was – strictly speaking – put together by Panamanians.

One more character enters the tale here: Federico Pauls, an Argentine who went from Matías Garfunkel’s companies to working at the risk consultancy firm of Frank Holder – a former CIA agent who in 2015 acknowledged to Noticias that he had subcontracted Scatturice for employment.

Holder would be the link between Flybondi’s owner and the US right wing, as well as dealings which enabled him to legitimise his own company, OCP Tech, whose subsidiary in Argentina has been obtaining extremely juicy contracts under Milei’s government.

The Panama incarnation of C3 had another director: Mónica Alejandra Caminos, a lawyer from the firm of Pablo Clusellas, legal and technical secretary and a childhood friend of ex-president Mauricio Macri. Caminos joined in October 2013 and left in May 2016 – a month after Gómez Centurión’s report. She also coincided with Scatturice at “Dark Star Group S.A.,” a Panamanian firm created the same year by the same three shareholders: Scatturice, Chiari and Pauls. Caminos arrived and left at exactly the same time as in C3. Whom did she represent? And what was she doing in two Panama-based offshore companies with Scatturice?

There was another link: “MCLV Media Corp,” a Panamanian firm established in 2014 and dissolved in 2019. Who were its managers? Scatturice, Caminos and Gonzalo Enrique Filgueira, business director of Infobae who was on the board of a company headed by Hadad, “THX Medios S.A.”

Those close to the media mogul deny any link with MCLV. They do not know how Filgueira and Scatturice met and claim they were going to make a road advertising deal. Nevertheless, it is striking that the address used by Filgueira for MCLV was not his own, but the headquarters of Infobae: Humboldt 1550, fourth floor, office 413.

Eighteen months after it was created, Scatturice presided over a shareholders’ meeting where a general power-of-attorney was granted to Filgueira.

An ideal neighbour

Laura Belén Arrieta, the woman who arrived at an airport in Buenos Aires on a private jet with 10 suitcases that were subsequently not inspected by Customs, is employed in Argentina by two companies.

One is OCP Tech S.A., a firm at the heart of Scatturice’s deals with the State. Arrieta is also a director with Flybondi’s new owner for multiple Florida-based companies. This includes Tactic COC LLC, the SIDE lobbyist’s key firm in the United States.

Who else is a director of Tactic? Soledad Cedro Limperopulo, a former Infobae writer based in Miami with at least 70 articles published via Hadad’s media outlet. The last one was in December 2024, while already serving as vice-president of the famous CPAC Argentina forum organised two months prior to the airplane scandal. Who presides over CPAC Argentina? Scatturice.

OCP Tech received privileged media coverage by Infobae for years. They deny this fact in Hadad’s inner circle. They claim that the articles were written because the company, as any other, sent press releases. Yet Scatturice’s relationship with the world of OCP Tech was mediated by a character also known to Hadad – Gastón Marquevich, an extremely affluent businessman who had a whirlwind romance with model Nicole Neumann.

What does the acronym OCP stand for? “Optimum Capital Partners Inc,” Marquevich’s flagship company created in Florida in 2013. Scatturice joined that scheme in early 2018 through MDELM LLC, which was domiciled at Hadad’s apartment before he bought it.

After that, there are multiple corporate transactions in this country and in the United States. The biggest one was to keep on OCP Tech S.A., then doing business as Systemnet S.A. It belonged to Federico Haymes Biedma and had the structure and history to compete big tenders with the State. They were associated for a few years until in 2022, Scatturice ended up buying out his ownership share for US$4 million.

If Systemnet S.A. had habitual shares in public contracts, its transformation into OCP Tech S.A.m with Scatturice and Marquevich’s entry took it to another level. There was, for instance, a major deal to manage the lower house Chamber of Deputies’ virtual sessions during the pandemic, which Infobae announced with a bang. This was articulated by Juan Manuel Cheppi, son of Carlos, ambassador to Venezuela during the business scandal with Chavism during Néstor Kirchner’s government.

Andrómeda Group Latam, linked with Scatturice and Marquevich, also took part through two offshore companies in Panama and the United States and whose local CEO, Maximiliano González Kunz, has been indicted in the investigation of the parallel embassy case with Venezuela.

From Scatturice’s circle they deny any ties with Andrómeda Group Latam: “That company has nothing to do with another company called Andrómeda based in Panama and owned by Scatturice. They are different companies,” they claim, “without any links to one another.”

President Milei’s arrival in power deepened OCP Tech’s deals with the State. There are the contracts published by several media outlets and others which remain unknown too. Marquevich intervened in late 2024 to attempt to get fresh funds from Saudi Arabia to Argentina’s government.

Hadad knows who they are. They are Continuum residents, like Scatturice. “They are acquaintances from the bar in the building,” said a close source. Perhaps that explains why Infobae exhibited their deals with such fanfare.

Marquevich did not respond to requests for comments by this publication and Scatturice did not answer any questions about their relationship.

The son-in-law

There are many rumours about the origin of the relationship between Daniel Hadad’s daughter and Mario De La Fuente. In the inner circle of the media tycoon, they explain that they happened to meet at a bar. “Scatturice had nothing to do with it,” they claim.

Just like Hadad had nothing to do with his business director from Infobae becoming associated with Scatturice in Panama. A mere coincidence.

Let us return to Scatturice’s known wiretapping in the “Dark Star” case. Articles in Perfil where it was revealed show him as enthusiastic on the project . In August 2013 there were rumours of the arrival of a SIDE ally. He talked about it, it was said, with his wife and Hadad himself. But he also talked with someone else.

“Get ready, we’re going to make a deal,” said -according to what was published by Perfil- the alleged former spy turned millionaire. “We have to go there and loot,” they replied from the other side. “Here’s what we have to do, looting, but tidily,” Scatturice concluded.

Who was he taking to? “Marito,” Daniel Hadad’s son-in-law.