Former government official Facundo Leal, 52, is a Mendoza lawyer with a postgraduate degree in corporate law who has accumulated almost two decades in strategic state posts linked to telecommunications, civil aviation and transport. Now he has been arrested in Buenos Aires after a raid in which some US$650,000, drugs and electronic devices were found in his Palermo flat. According to the La Nación newspaper, nearly US$1.7 million more were found in his Mendoza home.
In his latest sworn statement to the Anti-Corruption Office, Leal reported assets totalling 264,572,422 pesos, consisting of assets in one-man companies, a figure now under analysis in the face of the volume of cash found during the court raid.
The investigation did not have the ex-official as its original focus, nor were drug-trafficking nor cash sums working hypotheses. What moved the case, reported journalist Camila Dolabjian this week, was an investigation launched into the theft of technological equipment of high value belonging to ARSAT, dating back to the beginning of the Javier Milei administration.
Leal’s career unfolded within the state, starting in the Administración Nacional de Aviación Civil followed by a long stint in ARSAT, which he presided between 2022 and mid-2025 after being appointed under the Alberto Fernández government.
After the change of administration, he was appointed to head the ORSNA airport regulatory agency via Decree 390 signed by Milei and Economy Minister Luis Caputo, ad honorem since he was already collecting another state salary. This gave him control of the airport network with an orientation more geared to deregulation than tighter monitoring.
Proximity to Scatturice
Throughout his career Leal was considered a political middleman who influenced administrative decisions and inter-institutional links with proximity to figures like Sergio Massa but also to the libertarian government via the businessman and lobbyist Leonardo Scatturice, the owner of Flybondi who is close to Santiago Caputo and the protagonist of a previous scandal due to an aircraft owned by him which arrived in this country without being submitted to the corresponding controls.
Leal’s entry into the national arena was linked to former Mendoza Peronist governor Rodolfo Gabrielli, who guided his first steps in a career marked by his permanence over and above the changes of government.
His exit from ORSNA in early 2026 came parallel to the exit of former transport secretary Luis Pierrini, singled out as one of Scatturice’s closest and most recent contacts. Pierrini also headed the Independiente Rivadavia football club in Mendoza together with Daniel Vila.
According to La Nación, Pierrini and Leal resigned in January, presumably pressured over having used an aircraft belonging to Argentine Football Association (AFA) treasurer Pablo Toviggino to fly to Barcelona – according to reporting by journalist Carlos Pagni, the same aircraft sent by AFA to bring jailed Border Guard Nahuel Gallo home from Venezuela.
The operation during which he was arrested formed part of a series of between 12 and 15 simultaneous raids in different points of the country, evidence of the scale of the ongoing investigation.
At his Palermo flat the forensic experts found approximately US$650,000 in cash, together with around two million pesos and banknotes from at least six countries (including euros, reais, Uruguayan, Mexican and Colombian pesos and Tanzanian shillings) without any official explanation as to their origin.
The forensic experts also described finding nearly 300 grams of ketamine and MDMA in both crystal form and over 70 pills, plus a quantity of cocaine yet to be determined.
The requisition also included mobile telephones, notebooks, an iPad, pen-drives, a smartwatch and documentation which will be submitted to forensic studies, together with items associated with the consumption or unit-dosing of drugs like a balance, Ziploc-type bags, spoons and a vape with cannabis oil.Notably there was also high-tech spy surveillance gear, local media reporting.
– TIMES/PERFIL
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