“Very happy birthday Gero!! May you have a waterfall of success and you will soon find a magic flash drive!”, he celebrated Victoria Villarruel on his X account, congratulating one of his followers on the birthday. The vice president did not miss the opportunity to refer to Manuel Adorni’s latest statements in the media arena about his unusual fortune, using carefully selected words such as “pendrive” and “waterfall.”
Just a few hours ago, Adorni reappeared publicly in an interview with Jose Del Rio in the program small table LN+. After several months of judicial, political and media questions about the evolution of his personal assets, his consumption, real estate operations and financial movements linked to cryptocurrencies. The Chief of Staff chose to give a television report to try to close a crisis that became one of the main political problems for the government of Javier Milei.
During the note, the libertarian official maintained that his assets were built before he joined the national government and rejected the accusations of illicit enrichment. Among the most resonant phrases of the report, the coordinator of ministers admitted: “We save in black like all Argentines.” When Del Rio asked him why those funds had not been declared in a timely manner, he responded: “We did not declare it because the way to escape the old policy was to have savings in the black,” and also maintained: “It would never have occurred to me to save in the black in those years.” And he defended the origin of his assets, stating: “I built my assets before entering the Government.”
A significant moment during the interview was when the LLA leader revealed that he presented corrective affidavits to the Anti-Corruption Office corresponding to 2023 and 2024, incorporating assets that did not appear in their original presentations. According to his own explanation, the difference in assets would be around $500,000an amount whose origin he attributed to a combination of accumulated savings for years and profits obtained through investments in cryptocurrencies.
In the report, the most sensitive aspect was precisely the explanation about Bitcoin and other digital assets by the Chief of Staff. Adorni stated that he had invested approximately $200,000 in cryptocurrency and that these operations would have generated profits close to $300,000an argument used to justify a good part of the asset growth observed in recent years.
The explanation appeared after the judicial investigation began to detect movements in virtual wallets. The federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita received information from digital asset platforms and ordered to deepen the traceability of these operations to determine amounts, origin of funds and possible omissions in asset declarations. The crypto issue became one of the main axes of the case because different publications indicated that at least two virtual wallets would have mobilized close to $80,000 that did not appear in the sworn statement corresponding to 2024. The investigators would also have put other wallets linked to the official’s financial environment under observation.
However, the judicial front Adorni faces is much broader than cryptocurrencies. The controversy began to grow in March, when questions arose about personal expenses, trips and properties whose value seemed difficult to reconcile with the officially declared income. One of the episodes that had the most political impact was the trip to New York with his wife, Bettina Angelettiduring an official tour. The revelations about expenses linked to tickets, travel expenses and accommodation fueled questions about the true dimension of the family assets, which led to questions about flights to Punta del Este on private aircraft and suspicious real estate.
The investigation then progressed to a home located in the country Indio Cuain the north of Buenos Aires, after a complaint from legislator Marcela Pagano. There, the statement of the contractor Mariano Tabar who claimed to have carried out high-end repair works whose cost would have amounted to about $245,000much of it paid in cash and without supporting documentation. That statement is one of the most important pieces that Justice analyzes today.
Investigators are trying to determine who actually financed these renovations, which include an extravagant artificial waterfall, and where the funds used came from and whether these disbursements were reflected in the asset declarations. Suspicions deepened because the amount of the works would practically double the value originally attributed to the property.
Another important chapter involves the purchase and subsequent equity evolution of an apartment in Caballito. Various reports pointed out inconsistencies between the declared income and the financial capacity necessary to acquire the property, undertake renovations and simultaneously maintain other properties. This file is complemented by the analysis of credits, banking transactions, rentals and real estate transactions associated with the family group.
In parallel, Justice also analyzes the assets of Bettina Angeletti. His situation became especially relevant because several property transactions appear linked to the marriage and because some properties are registered in his name. In this context, another politically explosive event arose: the accession to the regime known as “Fiscal Innocence”a tool created by Law 27,799 promoted by the government of Javier Milei. The rule raised the thresholds for configuring tax crimes and created simplified mechanisms to regularize undeclared assets and income.
According to the information known this week, he first entered the regime of the official’s partner and later Adorni himself requested to benefit from the simplified system. The decision provoked strong criticism because the libertarian used a tool designed by the same libertarian administration while facing a property investigation.
The specialists consulted by different media agree that adhering to Tax Innocence can have tax effects, but does not prevent or paralyze an investigation for illicit enrichment, money laundering or corruption. For this reason, even after the asset rectifications announced by Adorni on LN+, the judicial case remains open and the prosecutor maintains evidentiary measures on real estate, consumption, banking transactions and operations with cryptocurrencies.
The public defense presented by the main spokesperson for Casa Rosada in the interview with José Del Rio was based on four pillars: admitting the existence of undeclared savings; maintain that these funds were obtained before entering the LLA government; attribute a substantial portion of his fortune to profits from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies; and regularize the situation through corrective declarations and entry into the Tax Innocence regime. Justice, however, is still trying to verify whether these explanations are enough to justify the entirety of the assets, the real estate transactions investigated, the questioned repairs and the financial movements detected in recent months.
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