One of the most important claims of Javier Milei’s successful presidential campaign was that he was here to crush the “caste,” eliminating corrupt benefits of those who form a parasitical circle of power that has led to flagrant inefficiencies and economic decrepitude. Milei, a private-sector economist who had always lived from the fruits of his labour, managed to connect with “normal people,” everyday Argentines who get up early to go to work and are sick and tired of “the same guys” always running the show, getting richer at the expense of everyone else. Milei, an anarcho-capitalist who seeks to destroy the state from within, is ideologically inoculated from corruption, in their view. To a certain extent, that logic is similar to the one that indicated that Mauricio Macri didn’t need to steal because he was already rich. At the same time, a large portion of society blames Kirchnerism specifically, and Peronism more broadly, for the current state of affairs, particularly after more than a decade of Kirchnerism led to abuses of power and corruption that began to surface publicly during Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s second term, and were fully blown out during the Macri era given his government’s insistence on showing the spoils of Néstor and Cristina’s friends. Thus, when Milei explains that he is here to “drain the swamp” metaphorically, in the same vein as Donald Trump in the United States during his first successful presidential campaign, his voters believe him.
It shouldn’t be surprising that it is merely rhetorical, as the president has already shown how malleable his ideology can be when necessity calls, particularly with taxes, where he had promised he would chop an arm off if he raised them, which he did repeatedly. He still has both arms, though. Yet, it is alarming that an underworld of arbitrary payments used in order to hand out rewards and impose punishment is emerging. In great part, this system appears to be controlled by presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei, but ultimately seems to respond to star political adviser, Santiago Caputo, who works as a freelancer and has no official post within the government structure. Much like in the heyday of Kirchnerism, when Alberto Fernández was Néstor’s cabinet chief, these arbitrary distributions of money were used to buy the allegiance of the media ecosystem in order to control it, while at the same time spilling over and landing in the hands of cunning opportunitists who fill their pockets at the expense of society, which is the ultimate source of those funds. And, also in line with the practices of Kirchnerism, this publishing house, Editorial Perfil, is identified and systematically discriminated in the distribution of official advertising given its critical stance.
The breadcrumbs of corruption spread much farther than simply the media industry, but it’s a good starting-point. One of the first measures announced by Economy Minister Luis “Toto” Caputo was the elimination of official advertising, which has a minimal impact on the budget deficit but had the symbolic effect of showing that the Milei administration was going after the “caste” and its benefits. Another promise was that debts would be paid in full given the sanctity of private property. The national government applied a stranglehold on the media industry, freezing all new advertising and halting debt payments on which the majority of the industry relied to survive, accelerating a crisis in the sector. Yet, it hasn’t kept its promise of zero official advertising, with the exception of Perfil, of course. Over the past several months, the Subsecretariat of the Spokesman and Communications led by Manuel Adorni, has allowed government-owned companies to open the faucet of official advertising, starting with the largest media groups and always working through intermediaries known as agencies, which get a cut in terms of commissions. A network of intermediaries has been at work gaining access to those budgets and then distributing them arbitrarily, with little to no supervision or transparency. At the top of the food chain deciding who gets what sit Karina and Santiago.
There’s also absolute opacity as to how the government’s extended communications team is financed. The so-called “troll army” is an amorphous digital task force that defends the government’s political ideology on social media and attacks detractors, particularly within their own ranks. Several of their accounts are anonymous while some have been made public, including “Gordo Dan” (Fat Dan), whose real name is Daniel Parisini, and Juan Doe, called Juan Pablo Carreira, who was ultimately hired by the government. There is a broad group of content creators reportedly working for Caputo and Fernando Cerimedo, a digital marketing and political strategist, whose cost structure hasn’t been explained, despite public information requests. One of the hypotheses is that this structure is financed with reserve funds of the newly re-branded SIDE spy agency, which Caputo controls through its freshly minted director, Sergio Neiffert. Shortly after the restructuring of the spy agency, the Milei administration signed an emergency decree giving it an additional 120 billion pesos, roughly US$100 million. Reports of infamous envelopes being handed out to SIDE collaborators abound, despite the president’s claim that he’s here to destroy corruption. According to a security expert, the level of corruption and criminality of the intelligence services remains the same as before. “These guys have no idea what’s going on,” the expert explained.
There are several other spheres of influence under Caputo’s wing. Through an up-and-coming public servant who was previously in María Eugenia Vidal’s ranks, Caputo has gained access to the FAMP fiduciary fund aimed at developing productive infrastructure in Tierra del Fuego province. It is financed by the major firms working in the province, including one owned by Nicky Caputo, Santiago’s uncle, and is worth some US$130 million. The Tierra del Fuego regime is controversial given the level of tax and duty breaks it receives, yet its immense lobbying power has allowed it to escape substantial changes, including those proposed in the recently approved Bases Law. Noelia Ruiz is Caputo’s eyes and ears in the FAMP, and she’s also been recently assigned to the Arsat state-owned telecommunications and satellites company. According to journalist Carlos Pagni, who is compulsively behind Caputo’s tracks, Arsat’s 36,000 kilometers of fibre optic cables and their 100 megahertz of spectrum which could be utilized for 5G deployment (which cost private sector firms like Claro, Telefónica, and Clarín-owned Telecom some US$170 million) could be in Elon Musk’s crosshairs.
There’s more, the reporter indicates that Caputo has a foot in the Enacom telecommunications regulator through Juan Martín Ozores, its interim director. There they have access to a US$160-million Universal Service Fund which was previously controlled by Sergio Massa in an opaque manner. The Milei administration is obsessed with privatisations, one of the stalwarts of the Carlos Menem era, which could provide much needed fresh funds while conducting a shotgun sale for government companies. That area is controlled by an official named Diego Chaher, who according to Perfil’s Pablo Varela has a good relationship with Caputo. The star adviser also has influence in the Justice Ministry, where Deputy Minister Sebastián Amerio is a close friend, and the Executive’s representative in the influential Magistrate’s Council. Caputo is responsible for pushing the candidacy of controversial judge Ariel Lijo for the Supreme Court. Lijo has been fiercely questioned by multiple civil society organizations, both domestic and international, and accused of corruption. There’s also close associates of Caputo from the times of his consultancy firm MOVE in state-controlled organizations including YPF energy company, Anses retirement and pensions agency, and the PAMI retirees healthcare firm. Many of these structures had been controlled by La Cámpora, the Kirchnerite political organization responding to Máximo Kirchner, during the previous administration.
Both Gordo Dan and the social media accounts linked to Santiago Caputo have indicated that the problem with Kirchnerism wasn’t its authoritarian ways but its ideology. There is a pattern emerging by which the La Libertad Avanza coalition shares characteristics with the Kirchnerite extremes, particularly an “us and them” political ideology and strategy, and the cult of the leader. There are few doubts that they are beginning to apply Kirchnerite recipes in order to discipline the media ecosystem, while financing their own media outlets, even though these days it’s not about building a publishing company and more about digital influencers. And that those methods open the door to arbitrariness and low-level corruption. Yet, the web of influence that responds to Caputo, and supposedly to sister Karina as well, is ample and touches on many of the public structures that were used and abused by previous administrations going all the way back to Menem, if not further. If the same methods being applied to the media industry spread elsewhere, they could be in for a banquet of shadiness.
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