The political temptations of leatherwork

Suitcases. Bags. Satchels. Like a loop, a new scandal exposes the irresistible seduction which leather goods seem to have on Argentine politics. It is curious that with all the technological advances we’ve made, physical objects of a certain size still move to and fro.

In Argentina’s recent history some resounding cases stand out. It is impossible to avoid deducing how many more must have passed unnoticed. Many. Too many.

How can we forget the parliamentary secretary Mario Pontaquarto, who confessed to having transferred bags of money to pay the kickbacks seeking Senate approval of more flexible labour legislation during the Alliance government of Fernando de la Rúa?

And what might be said about the suitcases with US$800,000 brought into Ezeiza International Airport from Caracas by Venezuelan businessman Guido Antonini Wilson and then-public official Claudio Uberti for the benefit of Kirchnerism?

Or the pornographic images of the former Kirchnerite public works secretary José López tossing bags containing US$9 million into a General Rodríguez convent?

Ahead of the start of the trial, the ‘Cuadernos’ notebooks corruption case was looking like the Disneyworld of leather goods. Public works businessmen, Kirchnerite officials and drivers transporting generous contributions in bags from one to the other. “For the campaign,” as one of them attempted to justify in court.

Now we are facing a new suspicious episode which triggers these poetic (shall we say?) memories. The prosecutors investigating it have detected a series of irregularities which could be covering up crimes.

It remains to be seen. What is known – for now – is that a private aircraft arrived at Ezeiza from the United States last February, carrying a single passenger with at least 10 suitcases which were not subject to Customs controls at the airport.

This anomaly took wings when it became known that the passenger was Laura Belén Arrieta, a 32-year-old women with solid contacts with the Javier Milei camp.

Arrieta also works for the owner of the plane that brought her to Argentina, Leonardo Scaturicce, a man with many links to the intelligence services, star spin doctor Santiago Caputo and US President Donald Trump. Oh, and he has just bought carrier Flybondi. By the way, would it be true that the low-cost airline had an “earmarked purchaser”?

When my colleague Carlos Pagni revealed this episode last summer, the government resoundingly denied the allegations. That unspeakable spokesman, Manuel Adorni, the same man who wants to denounce the alleged fake news of critical journalism, informed that it was a lie and that the corresponding controls had been made.

Adorni has not fielded questions from the accredited press at the Casa Rosada since last Sunday when my colleague Luciana Geuna showed on the TN news channel videos and photos exposing the total absence of any checks by the Customs and the PSA airport security police.

That material had been handed in by the PSA at the request of prosecutors Claudio Navas Rial and Sergio Rodríguez.

Multiple palace intrigues are circulating with the government over why the PSA, which depends on the Security Ministry under Patricia Bullrich, failed to alert the existence of images denying the official libertarian position. Or if they did deliver a warning and somebody forgot to pass it on?

The resonance of this episode perhaps overshadows other controversial images: those showing one of the key protagonists of the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency fraud, Mauricio Novelli, taking who knows what out of his safe deposit boxes in satchels at the branch of a bank.

This happened just before the scandal of the cryptocurrency promoted by Javier Milei exploded.