Diego Spagnuolo, former ANDIS chief, to stand trial on corruption charges

Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of the ANDIS national disability agency, will stand trial on corruption charges, a federal judge confirmed Monday.

Spagnuolo, 51, was sent to trial Monday by Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello, charged with 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 one charged in the investigation – Casanello’s decision also extends to Daniel Garbellini, Spagnuolo’s former second-in-command within ANDIS, as well as Miguel Angel Calvete and Pablo Atchabahian, two persons with close links to pharmaceutical chains. 

In total, there are 19 defendants, on whom the judge slapped different sums of liens on their assets. Among them are ex-officials and employees of ANDIS and private entrepreneurs, almost all of whom intervened with different roles in the alleged illicit association infiltrating the agency.

The highest lien of over 202 million pesos corresponded to Spagnuolo.

In his writ the judge stated out 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 Casanello, 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 magistrate’s ruling, ANDIS became a “road to enrichment for members of the organisation in clear detriment of the public aims which 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 of the health sector has been accredited," indicated Casenello’s resolution, adding that "said organisation dedicated itself to diverting public funds via steered purchases and overpricing."

Furthermore, the judge left the door open for a broader investigation by highlighting that “the criminal scheme unveiled would seem to have even more diffuse margins and not limited to the facts proven here.”

“Within ANDIS itself, there exist indications that the group had extended its logic of intermediaries, privileges and overpricing elsewhere,” added the judge.

“The extent of the business, the importance of the sums and a certain nonchalance –for example, ignoring the complaints of disappointed businessmen or dissatisfied officials – suggest that it is not just something encapsulated,” sums up the ruling.

Deeper investigation

The judge warned that the investigation delegated to the prosecutor Franco Picardi must be deepened, indicating in Monday’s sentence that the responsibilities could escalate to “other levels of complicity.” 

"The investigation should not leave such aspects aside but they should be clarified and deepened," he affirmed.

In the voice messages which became known last August, Spagnuolo assured that a percentage of the kickbacks obtained from the pharmaceutical chains, three percent, were destined for Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, also saying that he had warned President Milei of what was going on. He held presidential advisor Eduardo ‘Lule’ Menem responsible for the manoeuvre.

However, the alleged voice messages were not used as evidence by either Picardi or Casanello.

Martín Magram, the defence lawyer of Jonathan, Emmanuel and Eduardo Kovalivker (of the Suizo Argentina pharmaceutical chain), had argued that the origin of those recordings were illegal, calling for the entire case to be declared null and void. Other defence lawyers joined that demand. 

On Monday, parallel to placing the defendants on trial, Casanello had rejected that request.

ANDIS was dissolved last December following denunciations of corruption also smearing Karina Milei.

Spagnuolo resigned a few days after making his accusations. The President first said that he lied in the voice messages although Spagnuolo argued in court that the audios had been manipulated.

Nevertheless, the prosecution sustained its accusation on the basis of other evidence and the voice messages were not taken as proof by either the prosecutor or judge and nor are they mentioned in Monday’s resolution, which was based on documentation gathered from raids and statements taken from interrogation. 

Karina Milei is not among the accused but in the judge’s eyes, the evidence suggests that the mechanisms of corruption in ANDIS "could have another level of complicities" which must be investigated.

"The ANDIS case confirms point by point what we were denouncing," the lawyer Gregorio Dalbón, who made the first criminal charges of presumed corruption last August, pointed out to AFP news agency.

– TIMES/NA/AFP