CRYPTOGATE
On the evening of Saint Valentine’s Day on the cusp of last weekend President Javier Milei walked into a gigantic scandal when he used his social networks (with up to 14 million followers) to promote the brand-new ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency, the worth of which shot up to over US$4 billion in a few hours before crashing after a “rug-pull” by the main shareholders cashing in, especially when it emerged that the businessmen behind the scheme were previous visitors to the Casa Rosada and Olivos presidential residence. The Kirchnerite opposition immediately called for his impeachment but this was not echoed by most opposition parties with PRO blaming the presidential entourage rather than Milei himself for this “grave” blow to the country’s credibility. Amid a storm of controversy, over 100 charges of fraud were lodged in the courtroom of federal judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría while in the United States Milei was denounced along with the creators of the cryptocurrency to the US Justice Department and the FBI by the law firm Moyano & Asociados, specialists in cases of international insolvency and financial fraud. Milei faced the music in a lengthy television interview on Monday evening (controversially interrupted at one point by star spin doctor Santiago Cafiero, an error admitted by presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni, who attributed it to “perfectionism”). There he redefined his promotion of the cryptocurrency as “diffusion” and argued that those risking money in this scheme had no more right to complain than those gambling in a casino. The one lesson he drew from this misstep was that access to the presidency needed to be more filtered. On Tuesday journalist Cristina Pérez, the partner of Defence Minister Luis Petri, charged that there was a lobby within the presidential entourage which collected money from businessmen in exchange for meetings with Milei which did not always come to pass. On Wednesday Milei decided that attack was the best means of defence, denouncing “direct links between corrupt politicians and journalists on the take” in general and naming former Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in particular as one of the chief offenders before flying off to the United States just after midnight. Rodríguez Larreta’s response in language hardly less off-colour than Milei’s was not long in coming.
ALBERTO FACES TRIAL
Federal judge Julián Ercolini last Monday sent ex-president Alberto Fernández to trial for causing grievous bodily harm to former first lady Fabiola Yáñez, slapping a lien of 10 million pesos on his assets. The charges, which could carry a maximum prison sentence of 18 years, include an ingredient of psychological violence, according to Ercolini, in the forms of harassment, controls, indifference, insults, casting blame, mistreatment, silence and hostility, while the episodes of physical violence over a period of at least eight years included times when Yáñez was pregnant.
HOSTAGES HANDED BACK DEAD
The Israeli government last Thursday received from Hamas the bodies of four Gaza Strip hostages, including three members of the Bibas family of Argentine origin – the children Ariel (age five) and Kfir (two) along with their mother Shiri Bibas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu conveyed his grief while describing the Islamic militants as "monsters." The fourth dead hostage was Israeli citizen Oded Lifshitz (84). Hamas has blamed all four deaths on Israeli bombing. The only surviving member of the Bibas family is the father Yarden, released at the start of the month. A total of 24 hostages have been released since the January 19 ceasefire.
BANCO NACIÓN PRIVATISED
Just before flying to the United States early on Thursday, President Javier Milei signed the decree transforming Banco Nación into a limited company even though its privatisation had been rejected by Congress last year. "God bless the Argentine Republic" was how Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni concluded his announcement of the decree. The privatisation was justified as permitting the entry of capital in order to support PyME small and medium-sized companies. With Milei already arriving in the United States, the government announced a similar privatisation for COVIARA (Construcción de Vivienda para la Armada) state company for naval housing units currently under the Defence Ministry via Decree 117/2025 published last Thursday in the Official Gazette. Since its creation in 1966 under a military dictatorship, COVIARA has constructed over 8,000 housing units but the government argues that privatisation will permit a greater scope of real estate development at less administrative cost.
‘FICHA LIMPIA’ TAKES FURTHER STEP
Amid the scandal over the $LIBRA cryptocurrency, the ‘Ficha Limpia’ (“clean slate”) bill to ban those with confirmed corruption convictions from electoral candidacies obtained Senate committee approval to advance to the House floor on Wednesday with PRO, UCR Radical and provincial senators backing the government. The bill encounters solid opposition from the Unión por la Patria (UxP) caucus with almost half the senators, which argues that the bill has no other aim than to disqualify ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Senator Mariano Recalde (UxP-City) accused Milei of seeking to exclude the corrupt from politics when he himself has just been exposed as a fraudster.
TEACHER STRIKE?
With the start of the school year just around the corner and teacher unions anticipating two days of strike, the Human Capital Ministry has summoned unions to the negotiating table as from 3pm on Monday.
MORE PRISON BREAKS
Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri and Security Minister Patricia Bullrich reached agreement on Tuesday on the transfer of prisoners from overcrowded City police stations, following yet another police jail breakout by six convicts in Balvanera in the small hours of that morning (the third such escape in the space of 10 days), although the numbers have yet to be defined. Last Christmas Eve, 17 prisoners absconded from a Liniers jail, prompting friction between Bullrich and her City counterpart Waldo Wolff. On another front, Bullrich announced last weekend that the government would be withdrawing some 300,000 permits to produce medicinal cannabis issued via the REPROCAN scheme.
NEW ENVIRONMENT CHIEF
The government last Wednesday officially confirmed Fernando Brom as the new Environment Undersecretary to replace Ana Lamas, who resigned the previous week, even though Brom has deplored the “zero priority” given to fighting forest fires. When announcing his appointment, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni excused his comments as “the expressions of somebody who has not been briefed on everything we have done against the catastrophe of the fires” and who had been misled by fake news.
KUEIDER’S COMPLAINT
Expelled senator Edgardo Kueider, currently under house arrest in Paraguay for trying to enter an undeclared US$200,000 into that country, on Tuesday lodged a challenge in the Federal Administrative Litigation Appeals Court to prevent his replacement by La Cámpora leader Estefanía Cora, pending a final judicial resolution of his situation. But it took that court just two days to knock back his challenge “in limine,” thus leaving Kueider without parliamentary immunity. Kueider argued that having two senators for the same Entre Ríos seat was unacceptable as both an institutional conflict and an extra economic cost.
JÉSICA IN THE SPOTLIGHT?
Jésica Cirio, the ex-wife of disgraced Peronist politician Martín Insaurralde now romantically linked to the real-estate broker Elías Piccirillo, is again in trouble with the law after a court raid found US$3 million in their house, according to a press report, although judicial sources consulted by Noticias Argentinas news agency have denied any such raid.
METEORITE DAZZLES
A falling meteorite, which could also be seen across the Andes, lit up the Patagonian city of Bariloche last Wednesday, startling local residents and tourists. Despite common belief, meteorites rarely fall to earth but often explode in mid-air at an altitude of around 100 kilometres, astronomer Daniela Chiesa told the Noticias Argentinas news agency.
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