Buenos Aires, November 15, 2025 – The case for alleged kickbacks at the National Agency for Disability (Andis) has uncovered, according to Federal Justice, an organized structure of illicit association, bribery, and aggravated fraud in the purchase of medicines and high-cost supplies. According to the prosecution, through a manipulated system of 'restricted tenders,' a group of former officials, intermediaries, and businessmen obtained undue benefits that, in just twelve months, exceeded 43 billion pesos. According to the accusation's hypothesis, they coordinated among themselves which firm would win each process and took turns in different categories, from expensive medicines to high-tech hearing aids. At the first level were the officials who controlled the Andis: Spagnuolo, as executive director, and Daniel Garbellini, as head of the Health Services Access area. At the second level were external operators with internal influence who gave orders, defined the strategy, managed returns, and placed their own personnel within the agency to manipulate the purchasing system and filter key information. The third level was made up of businessmen and pharmacy managers who benefited from the reduced tenders. The combination of directed purchasing, simulated competition, and systematic overpricing is, for the prosecutor, the core of the crime. The investigation also exposes a suspected money laundering circuit derived from these illicit benefits. In a restricted tender lane, 21 processes were detected between July 2024 and August 2025, in which two companies concentrated more than 93% of the awards and total amounts exceeding 30,000 million pesos, while other potential suppliers were systematically left out. The Administrative Investigations Procuratorship has documented extreme cases of overbilling that serve as an example of the scheme. Similar situations were verified with other extremely high-cost drugs, such as Burosumab and Guselkumab, whose prices in the closed tenders practically doubled or tripled the values offered by competitors in open bids. The criminal structure described by the Prosecutor's Office was organized into three levels. Prosecutor Franco Picardi maintains that, through a manipulated system of 'restricted tenders,' a group of former officials, intermediaries, and businessmen obtained undue benefits that, in just twelve months, exceeded 43,000 million pesos. According to the hypothesis of the accusation, they coordinated among themselves which firm would win each process and took turns in the different categories, from expensive medicines to high-tech hearing aids. A technical operator executed the tenders materially in the computer system, loading invitations and offers according to the group's instructions. Judge Sebastián Casanello called for a hearing for the former executive director of the agency, Diego Spagnuolo, along with other accused, and set the first hearings for November 19. According to the fiscal report, the maneuver was based on the creation of two parallel purchasing circuits: one regular, in which 14 to 16 pharmacies were invited to compete, and another restricted, called 'restricted tenders,' where only three or four selected firms participated. In raids, undeclared cash sums, a bill-counting machine, and financial movements that do not match the formal income of some of the accused were found. After the appearance of these recordings, the Executive Branch ordered his removal through a decree that left his appointment without effect, at the same time as the agency was intervened and new authorities were appointed. The case, filed in a federal court in Comodoro Py, has accumulated raids, audio expert reports, seizure of phones and internal documentation, and could branch out into other public contracting niches if it is proven that the logic of directed tenders was replicated in different agencies and categories. He was appointed by decree at the end of 2023 and was among the people who most frequently visited the Olivos residence during 2024 and 2025, which accentuated the impact of the leak of audios in which supposed 'returns' 'upwards' in the power structure are mentioned. A medicine for serious pathologies, Macitentan 10 mg, came to be awarded at almost 8.3 million pesos per unit in a restricted tender, when in an open process just three days earlier it had been paid for just over 400,000 pesos, an increase of over 1900%.
