Ariel Zanchetta is the former police officer whose conversations with deputy Rodolfo Tailhade and AFIP spokesperson, Fabián “El Conu” Rodríguez, uncovered the espionage scandal of these hours. He spoke with NOTICIAS from the Marcos Paz prison, where he is detained for this reason. It is the first report he gives to a journalistic medium.
News: Were you a Federal Police officer?
Ariel Zanchetta: Yes, I am retired. From ’88 to 2012, when I retired and began working as a journalist.
News: Did you practice journalism while you were a police officer?
Zanchetta: No, because it couldn’t be done. Because I don’t do sports journalism, but I do investigative journalism.
News: How did you meet Fabián Rodríguez and Rodolfo Tailhade?
Zanchetta: A journalist always has a relationship with national and local political leaders. One of those I know is Gustavo Posse, who gives me publicity for my portal, Enclave. When I was operational manager of the Junín newspaper La Verdad, I met him because he was in Télam. I never met Tailhade, I met two or three chats.
News: What were the messages about?
Zanchetta: I was going to do a report on Cristina’s causes in public works, something that never materialized. Then we wrote to each other on Telegram. When it was about Marcelo D’Alessandro’s chats, I sent him a tweet with the links to the chats. “Look, Rodolfo, this came out in case you’re interested, I’ll pass it on to you before publishing it,” I told him.
News: He talks about sending him “the strip” from Luis Juez.
Zanchetta: It was a not well-known Córdoba portal with public information. But I never sent it to him.
News: He also tells him that he had a report on Carrió’s cases.
Zanchetta: Yes, a historical (sic) of all the causes that he did that there is nothing wrong with him. It is public information. They passed it to me. A source passed it to me.
News: Why were you passing reports to a politician?
Zanchetta: Because I was going to publish it and I told him: “I’ll give you this in case it helps you.” All journalists do it.
News: No, journalists don’t do that.
Zanchetta: There are judicial resolutions that have not yet appeared in the media and one passes it on to another.
News: Among colleagues, yes.
Zanchetta: And to politicians too, there are many journalists who pass information to politicians. Do not say no to me.
News: That’s not right, but let’s continue: do you know the missionary hacker Nuñes Pinheiro?
Zanchetta: No, I do not know it.
News: In a report they found on his computer he says that he had worked since 2009 for an Army intelligence area linked to Cesar Milani and Fernando Pocino.
Zanchetta: I don’t know any of those people.
News: Was he an inorganic agent of the AFI?
Zanchetta: No never. Yes, as a journalist, I have contacts from the PSA, the provincial police, the federal police and also intelligence.
