In Coworking, the radio program hosted by Nacho Otero on Delta 90.3, the national representative was interviewed Marcela Pagano. The legislator of the Coherence block in the National Congress he referred to the release of the gendarme Nahuel Gallo by the Venezuelan government and recognized that the administration of Javier Milei He was not aware of the diplomatic operation. “The government did not take any action to rescue Nahuel Gallo, or any other Argentine,” the parliamentarian highlighted.
“There were many other Argentines that the press did not know were captured in Venezuela and the government did nothing to repatriate them,” Pagano said in a report and added: “I am a witness that Delcy Rodriguez wanted to free Nahuel Gallo from the second day he took office.” In addition, the former libertarian contradicted the official versions that reported that the Ministry of Security and the Foreign Ministry had been managing the release request. “In the case of Nahuel Gallo, no one officially claimed it,” she explained, taking aim at the management of Patricia Bullrich in the government portfolio and assured: “There were no efforts of this type mentioning Nahuel Gallo.”
The return to Argentina of gendarme Nahuel Gallo this March 1 marked the closing of a chapter that lasted 448 days of detention in Venezuela, but it also unleashed a political controversy over who made his return possible. Gallo, a first corporal of the Argentine National Gendarmerie, had been detained on December 8, 2024 upon entering from Colombia to visit his partner and son, in what Caracas described as an irregular entry with alleged links to destabilizing activities, an accusation that Argentina always rejected and described as arbitrary.
From the first days of his arrest, his case generated diplomatic tensions between Buenos Aires and the Caribbean country. The Argentine Foreign Ministry issued official statements denouncing the irregularity of the detention, calling it an “open violation of fundamental rights” and warning that “Argentina will not tolerate acts of this nature against its citizens.” The deprivation of liberty was also condemned by international organizations, such as the Organization of American States, which came to classify it as a “crime against humanity” based on its context and treatment.
The intervention of Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, head of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), who through contacts with the Venezuelan Football Federation and the political environment of Caracas built a “humanitarian bridge” to unblock the case. According to journalistic sources, Tapia established ties with the president of the Venezuelan federation, Jorge Gimenez Ochoaclose to the current president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, which facilitated informal conversations that led to the release of the gendarme.
The AFA’s action included preparing a flight on a private aircraft linked to the entity to bring Gallo back, and the dissemination of a photograph in which he was seen with leaders of the sports association before his departure to the country. In a statement released by the same entity, Tapia thanked the Venezuelan authorities for “their sensitivity and willingness… demonstrating that sport can also be an effective bridge for understanding.” According to the media, the plane belongs to Baires Fly, a company that is usually associated with the environment of the highest representative of local football and was made available to facilitate the return trip to Buenos Aires.
Pagano explained that the effort to free the Argentine gendarme began weeks ago within parliamentary diplomacy, through contacts with the president of the Venezuelan Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, brother of the current Bolivarian president. The Coherencia member assured that there was never any effort, on the part of Casa Rosada, to free Gallo through official ties such as the Italian embassy or, at the time, that of Brazil.
A collaborator of Delcy Rodriguez proposed the intermediation of Tapia so that it could be carried out through a flight with a plane belonging to the AFA. In the story, Pagano highlighted that the current Minister of Security and the governor of Catamarca, where part of Gallo’s maternal family is from, did not collaborate so that the gendarme had contact with his closest relatives. “Monteoliva and Jalil They obstructed the return of Nahuel Gallo, which could have occurred in mid-January at the latest,” he said.
This final operation that allowed Gallo to leave Venezuela was interpreted as a humanitarian gesture by the Chavista regime in a context of political releases, which was imposed after the arrest of Nicolas Maduro by the United States, as a triumph of parallel efforts that the traditional Argentine State had not carried out. Sources agree that, regardless of the route used, the priority was to ensure Gallo’s freedom and his soon reunion with his family.
Surprisingly, as this chapter closes, the figure of Tapia and Pagano emerge as unexpected actors on the diplomatic scene and domestic politics, which also opens a debate on the ineffectiveness of formal foreign policy in the face of informal networks in crisis cases such as that of Gallo and other compatriots detained abroad. The Casa Rosada and, in particular, the Foreign Ministry and the Security portfolio were taken aback by this development.
by RN
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