In a country where political corruption is often met with a resigned shrug, Argentina has been rocked by a scandal that threatens to upend not just a presidency, but the very narrative that swept Javier Milei into office less than two years ago. The libertarian economist, who ascended to power by promising to demolish the so-called corrupt political "caste," now finds his own inner circle at the heart of explosive bribery allegations—allegations that could prove decisive as Argentines head to the polls for national midterms at the end of October 2025.
The controversy erupted in late August, when the local streaming channel Carnaval published a series of secretly recorded audio clips. According to AP and The American Conservative, these recordings feature the voice of Diego Spagnuolo, the then-director of Argentina’s National Disability Agency (ANDIS) and a close personal friend of Milei. In the tapes, Spagnuolo describes a kickback scheme involving Suizo Argentina, a major medical supply company, and alleges that top government officials—including Milei’s powerful sister and secretary general, Karina Milei—received bribes ranging from $500,000 to $800,000 in exchange for lucrative government pharmaceutical contracts. The voice in the recording claims Karina Milei took kickbacks of 3-4% of contract values.
"I told him, ‘Javier, you know they’re stealing, that your sister is stealing,’" Spagnuolo is heard saying, as reported by AP. While the recordings make clear that Spagnuolo claims to have informed President Milei about the scheme, he also asserts that the president himself was not personally involved. Still, the allegations land like a thunderbolt, striking at the core of Milei’s anti-corruption image.
The provenance of the recordings is murky. Journalists Mauro Federico and Jorge Rial, who released the tapes, have declined to say when or where they were made, only suggesting they could be up to a year old. The audio clips are carefully edited, containing only Spagnuolo’s remarks, which has led some to question their authenticity and context. Yet, there is little doubt the timing of their release—just before key provincial elections in Buenos Aires—was calculated for maximum political damage. As The American Conservative notes, the scandal “could derail the president’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party during critical legislative elections.”
The Milei administration responded initially with silence. It took six days before President Milei dismissed Spagnuolo, who also served as his personal lawyer. Federal authorities quickly moved in, raiding the offices and homes of Spagnuolo and executives from Suizo Argentina, seizing phones and computers as evidence. The courts also launched investigations into the Kovalivker family, operators of Suizo Argentina, whom the recordings implicate as key players in the alleged bribery scheme.
Under mounting pressure, Milei and his officials publicly denied the veracity of the recordings, accusing their Kirchnerist political rivals of orchestrating a smear campaign. “Everything [Spagnuolo] said is a lie,” Milei told reporters, pledging to take legal action to prove the accusations false. Eduardo “Lule” Menem, another senior aide named in the tapes, insisted, “I never had any intervention of any kind with the contracts of ANDIS.”
Despite the administration’s denials, the scandal has sent shockwaves through Argentine society. On August 27, 2025, Milei’s campaign rally in Buenos Aires descended into chaos as protesters hurled rocks and insults at his motorcade, forcing security to evacuate the president. The backlash has been especially fierce against Karina Milei, who acts as her brother’s gatekeeper and is often referred to as “El Jefe”—the boss. In recent weeks, she has faced public outrage, even being evacuated from two consecutive campaign events in the capital. A jingle mocking her as a “big bribe-taker” has gone viral, echoing through Buenos Aires nightclubs and on social media.
This isn’t Karina Milei’s first brush with controversy. Earlier in 2025, she was implicated in a crypto scandal involving the memecoin Libra, which collapsed shortly after its launch, resulting in over $250 million in losses for investors. Text messages revealed the coin’s creator boasted of paying Karina to promote the venture—a claim she and her brother have denied. Class-action lawsuits related to the crypto debacle are still grinding through U.S. courts.
Further complicating matters, Suizo Argentina’s contracts with the government ballooned from about AR$4 million to over AR$100 million during Milei’s tenure, a fact critics have seized on as circumstantial evidence of corruption. Yet, as The American Conservative points out, no material evidence has yet surfaced to conclusively substantiate the bribery claims. The government and its supporters argue that the entire episode is a politically motivated operation designed to destabilize the administration ahead of the midterms. “It’s no coincidence that this type of ploy appears just two weeks before the elections in the province of Buenos Aires,” Menem wrote in a public statement.
But the scandal’s fallout has already begun to reshape Argentina’s political landscape. On September 4, 2025, the Argentine Congress overturned President Milei’s veto on a law funding disability pensions—the first time a presidential veto has been overridden in more than two decades. This legislative rebuke, widely interpreted as a symbolic attack on the administration’s handling of the disability agency, underscores the growing momentum of opposition parties, who now hold a clear majority in the legislature. The Senate also approved measures to curtail the president’s ability to issue Decrees of Necessity and Urgency, a tool Milei has relied on to circumvent legislative gridlock.
Meanwhile, the government’s attempts to control the narrative have sparked a fierce debate over press freedom. After additional recordings surfaced—this time of Karina Milei inside her private office at the Casa Rosada presidential palace—police raided the offices of Carnaval and the homes of several journalists, seizing laptops and hard drives. A federal judge subsequently barred media outlets from publishing any recordings made inside the presidential palace, a move condemned by Reporters Without Borders as “one of the most serious threats to press freedom in the country since the return of democracy.”
The government even floated the notion of foreign interference, hinting at possible involvement by Russian spies—a suggestion the Russian Embassy dismissed as “irrational and destructive.”
For President Milei, the scandal strikes at the very heart of his political identity. As Monica de Bolle of the Peterson Institute for International Economics observed, Karina Milei has become the president’s “Achilles’ heel.” The public’s faith in Milei’s promise to root out corruption and break with the past now hangs in the balance, with many Argentines wondering if the outsider is any different from the “caste” he vowed to defeat.
As the October midterms approach, the outcome remains uncertain. What is clear is that the allegations, whether ultimately proven or not, have already left a deep mark on Argentine politics, exposing old wounds and testing the resilience of its democratic institutions.
