Hugo Alconada Mon, pro-secretary of La Nación and a leader in investigative journalism, has a nickname that reflects his confrontation with power: “Anaconda.” In the program On The Record with Iván Schargrodsky (C+, 10/12/2025), he explained his origin: “In order not to mention me by name, they played with my last name and gave me the keyword Anaconda.” The term emerged in 2018, during the government of Mauricio Macri, and marked his fight against espionage by the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI, former SIDE).
That year, Alconada revealed links between Macri and the Lava Jato case, denouncing bribes involving Gustavo Arribas, head of the AFI, and Ángelo Calcaterra, Macri’s cousin. From these publications, an illegal espionage operation began. From a base in Mataderos, agents followed him between March and November, placed a GPS in his car and monitored his home in Buenos Aires and that of his parents in La Plata. They sought to identify their sources and analyze their standard of living. The secret “Anaconda” file circulated on WhatsApp, according to the judicial case of Judge Federico Villena (2020), which also discovered monitoring of Cristina Kirchner and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the case as an attack on press freedom.
In 2025, he was again the target of attacks after publishing the National Intelligence Plan (PIN) of the SIDE under the government of Javier Milei, a secret 170-page document signed by Diego Kravetz. The text prioritizes monitoring people who “erode trust in the government.” After that publication, Alconada suffered ten hacking attempts on WhatsApp, fake emails and threats from numbers in Chaco and the City of Buenos Aires. Regarding Santiago Caputo, he warned: “Santiago Caputo has reserved for himself, among other areas of the State, the former AFIP—now ARCA—, the Anti-Money Laundering Unit and the State Intelligence Secretariat.”
During the interview, Schargrodsky asked him if he paid for information. Alconada responded: “I never paid for information, it is a line I do not cross.” And regarding the differences within his own media group, he clarified: “At La Nación we do journalism based on data and facts; LN+ has another style, more opinion-based, and sometimes that generates noise.”
With an Honoris Causa Doctorate awarded by the Maimónides University in 2023, Alconada Mon continues to be one of the strongest voices in Argentine journalism against political power and the intelligence services.
