The former head of the National Disability Agency (ANDIS), Diego Spagnuolo, declares in the case that it is investigating the management of the organization’s funds and will begin the round of investigations. In total, there will be 34 people charged with alleged corruption maneuvers involving million-dollar figures and a network of officials and businessmen. The list continues with whoever was the second in charge of ANDIS, Daniel María Garbellini. The schedule also foresees that Miguel Ángel Calvete declare and do it on Wednesday Andrés Horacio Arnaudo.
“A system of directed and cartelized price controls would have been implemented, through the repeated call of a small set of firms linked to each other and to officials of the agency. They pretended to compete among themselves when, in reality, they acted in a coordinated manner to ensure previously agreed awards,” stated the resolution of the federal judge. Ariel Lijowho ordered the summons, and maintained: “The criminal hypotheses investigated allow us to warn of the possibility of maneuvers aimed at the dispossession of assets that could have been instruments, products or objects of possible crimes and, therefore, susceptible to being recovered by the State.”
NEWS investigated the links of Diego Orlando Spagnuolo with the cause, the relationship with Javier Milei and the alleged illicit association to benefit from the budget allocated to disability. The prosecution of the former head of the National Disability Agency not only formalizes one of the most sensitive causes of corruption at the beginning of the libertarian government: it also exposes, with documentary crudeness, the internal functioning of a scheme that combined private businesses, unfaithful officials and an area of the State intended for the most vulnerable sectors.
The judicial file is forceful in its diagnosis: between December 2023 and October 2025, ANDIS would have operated as “the operations center” of an organization dedicated to collecting bribes, directing purchases and systematically paying surcharges on high-cost medicines.
The case was activated based on a key political and media event: the dissemination of audios revealed by the journalist Mauro Federiconext to Ivy Kangaroo, in which Spagnuolo himself described an alleged system of returns within the Disability area that, in his story, affected the leadership of libertarian power. In these recordings, it was explicitly mentioned Karina Milei and leaders of the presidential environment as final beneficiaries of the maneuvers.
From that revelation, the lawyer Gregorio Dalbon filed a complaint that was taken by the federal court in charge of Sebastian Casanellowho ordered the first evidentiary measures: raids, cell phone seizures, forensic reports and cross-referencing of asset information. The indictment signed by Casanello makes it clear that the object of the case is the existence of “a scheme for the collection and payment of bribes related to the purchase and provision of medicines, with direct impact on public funds”, falling within the crimes of bribery, fraudulent administration and negotiations incompatible with public office.
The ruling adopts a central definition of the prosecutor Franco Picardi: During the period investigated, ANDIS would have functioned as “a window for millionaire, permanent and directed payments”, managed by public officials in coordination with businessmen in the health sector, “to the detriment of the public administration and, in particular, of the population sector with disabilities, which is especially vulnerable.” This is not a rhetorical emphasis: Casanello emphasizes that the damage is not only economic, but also social and structural.
The prosecution describes a sophisticated but brutal scheme in its logic. According to the judge, “a ‘special’ price compulsive system was implemented in which only a small group of firms were invited to participate,” which made it possible to “substantially raise prices” and ensure previously agreed awards. The maneuver included simulation of competition, cartelization of drugstores and payments directed through the SIIPFIS system, the internal platform of ANDIS. The estimated damage from suspicious purchases exceeds 30 billion pesos.
In the center of the plot appears Spagnuolo, designated as the highest political and administrative authority of the organization. Casanello recalls that, by decree, he was in charge of the “economic, financial, patrimonial and accounting management” of ANDIS, in addition to its general direction. Under his direction – the resolution maintains – “the group of businessmen linked to the drugstores operated directly and participated in the direction of the administration’s will,” in exchange for “undue compensation.”
One of the most compromising passages of the prosecution reconstructs with surgical precision the mechanics of cash collection. On June 11, 2025, the judge states, Spagnuolo “urgently needed the sum of five million pesos, in cash.” The order was channeled first through intermediaries and then directly by Miguel Ángel Calvete (His daughter, Ornella, is also involved). The messages extracted from the cell phones are explicit: “I need cash,” reads one of them. In another exchange, it is clarified that the request was not exceptional: “it was always like this.”
For Casanello, that point is decisive. “The discussion did not revolve around the official’s request itself, but rather the way in which the delivery of the money would materialize,” the judge writes, ruling out the hypothesis of an isolated episode. The operation included simulated billing, remittances that had to be “kept as gold” and explicit requests for discretion: “Shhhhh”, “with no one”, according to the chats incorporated into the file.
Calvete’s role is also clearly delineated. The prosecution maintains that “Atchabahian and Miguel Ángel Calvete, along with other members of the organization, were able to intervene in the organization’s decisions, improperly influencing and asserting their close ties with the beneficiary drugstores and laboratories.” The relationship between Calvete and Spagnuolo was, furthermore, personal and frequent: the records of the gated community where the former official lived in Pilar document at least five contemporaneous visits to the events under investigation.
From a legal point of view, Casanello leaves no room for ambiguity. He cites classic doctrine to remember that in the crime of bribery “there must be collusion between the one who corrupts and the one who allows himself to be corrupted,” and defines corruption as “the sale of an act of authority that should be carried out freely.” Under this criterion, both the official and the individual are full authors of their own crime.
The political background of the case multiplies its impact. Spagnuolo was not a marginal coach: he was a man extremely trusted by Javier Milei, with direct access to Olivos and a personal relationship that placed him among the President’s most frequent visitors. This closeness is what makes the audios released by Mauro Federico explosive, where Karina Milei is mentioned as part of the plot. However, the judicial file, at least at this stage, does not prove that the money reached the Casa Rosada: the investigation indicates that the funds “remained in Calvete and its surroundings”, without prejudice to the fact that other responsibilities remain under analysis.
The paradox is brutal. The cause that began as a private and media denunciation against power ended up turning against its main narrator. Today, Spagnuolo is prosecuted, detained, with his cell phone kidnapped and deleted messages already recovered by experts. The man who spoke of other people’s bribes was trapped in a network of which, according to Justice, he was an active part.
The NEWS cover, titled “Confidential Spanish” and written by Juan Luis González, functions as the political backdrop for this story: the official who spoke in a low voice ended up becoming the axis of an investigation that keeps the Government on the defensive and the Casa Rosada under indirect suspicion.
Spagnuolo’s secrets are no longer leaked audios or hallway speculation. They are written, with signature and seal, in a court file that describes a corruption plot in an area intended for people with disabilities. And at that point, beyond libertarian internals, cross operations and political responsibilities, there is an uncomfortable truth: when corruption is installed in social policies, the damage is not abstract. It has a name, recipients and specific consequences. And this case, far from being closed, is just beginning to show everything that still needs to be told.
by RN
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