Julio De Vido, former Minister of Planning (2003-2015), has been in preventive prison since 2017 for the Once Tragedy (51 deaths, 2012). Now, in the oral trial of the Cuadernos de las Bribes that began on November 6, 2025, he is accused of leading an illicit association that collected bribes for public works. In addition to Once, his Achilles heel has always been the allegations of corruption.
18 years ago, in 2007, NOTICIAS Magazine was already investigating De Vido and his team of collectors in a series of articles that exposed the circuit of illegal funds in public works.
This is the text that Franco Lindner, the magazine’s Politics editor, wrote in 2018, when he was arrested for the first time, about that famous cover:
It was March 2007 when we at NEWS decided to capture on a cover the mass of evidence and testimonies that pointed against the now detained former super minister Julio De Vido and his team of informal collectors. Among them, the already famous José López, then Secretary of Public Works. I had to lead this investigation and speak with different construction and transportation leaders and businessmen who quietly – but alarmed – alluded to the modus operandi imposed by Kirchnerism to do business with the State. Some said that De Vido’s officials demanded something from them that they called “political favor,” an original neologism to define bribes. Another businessman told me that a collaborator of the now famous López suggested to him after a meeting in his office: “And when are you going to join the party?” And an official from the Río Negro governorate added off the record that the followers of the powerful former Minister of Planning asked for a 15 percent “guarantee” when the Nation awarded any work to the province. “They say it’s the guarantee in case we don’t finish the work. But when we finish it, they keep that 15 percent the same!”
The aforementioned examples speak of the verbal inventiveness of the previous government for something as old and crude as stealing. Even for that they had a “story”.
On the aforementioned cover, in addition to De Vido and López, other Planning officials appeared who ended up involved in different scandals and legal cases, such as Claudio Uberti, Ricardo Jaime, Néstor’s cousin, Carlos Kirchner, and Nelson Periotti. Together they managed a $5 billion cash box that was out of control. Today, all of them are prisoners.
It was eleven years ago, when the bulk of public opinion was entertained by other less gloomy issues than the theft that was hidden behind the K party. A few days after writing that note I had an informal meeting with Carlos Grosso, the controversial former Menemista official (and today Macrista advisor) who at that time was advising De Vido and his team in the shadows. He mentioned that cover to me and said: “That bullet passed close, huh? It grazed the jugular.”
The Government had accused the impact. But as long as Justice and the rest of the press (with honorable exceptions) looked the other way, the problem could be managed. That’s how it happened.
I still remember the debate we had in NOTICIAS when it came to titling that cover with the irreverence that characterizes the magazine. We called it “De Vido’s Superband.” But wouldn’t that be too much?
Eleven years later, the former super minister and his cast have just confirmed that we fell short.
by Franco Lindner
