Argentina Probe: Dollar Scheme and Political Fallout

According to the monetary authority, it was an “abusive modality” consisting of channeling official foreign exchange through currency exchange operators that, instead of serving end customers, diverted them to other entities and, eventually, to the blue market without the traceability required by foreign exchange regulations. Links and profile of the investigated. Among the names that emerge in the case, Maximiliano Ariel Vallejo, linked to Concordia Inversiones and Sur Finanzas, and Elías Piccirillo, appear at the center of the federal investigation. As judicial proceedings develop —including raids on offices of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic and homes of those involved— the investigation has added elements pointing to possible relationships between some of the names involved and figures linked to the political network of the Ministry of Economy during that period, led by Sergio Massa. Summaries concluded by the Superintendence of Banking and Exchange Entities point to three exchange houses —Gallo Cambios, Mega Latina and Concordia Inversiones— as central pieces of a circuit that would have moved almost 1,000 million dollars between 2022 and 2023. The Central Bank determined that this operation was not permitted for exchange houses nor was it declared in accordance with the current regimes. Political and judicial implications. The advancement of judicial investigations, which combines procedures in private homes and in the offices of official financial entities, once again raises questions about the effectiveness of the control of the foreign exchange market under the strictest exchange controls in recent years and the possible connivance between financial operators and political sectors linked to the administration of economic policy. That relationship, due to its media exposure and its ramifications, has been the object of political and journalistic attention precisely because of its possible link to atypical financial operations in times of strict exchange controls. For his part, the name of Elías Piccirillo —ex-husband of public figure Jesica Cirio— has emerged in different raids related to maneuvers to buy dollars with access to official rates, which led the Justice to order procedures on phones, computers and documentation in premises linked to his financial activity, within the framework of the case handled by federal judge Sebastián Casanello. Although there are no formal accusations to date directly linked to Massa, sources consulted indicate that the maneuvers investigated occurred in a period in which the then Minister of Economy had influence over the country's exchange rate policy, which has motivated a flood of journalistic and political versions about the possible existence of “privileged access” or relationships that benefited some operators over others during the administrative management. Details of the maneuvers under scrutiny. The Central Bank's summaries point to a systematic channeling of official dollars towards the parallel market, distorting the regulatory function of exchange houses. According to journalistic sources covering the progress of the files, both would have had privileged access or close relationships with actors from the political and financial environment during the economic management led by Massa, particularly in exchange and financial matters related to the manipulation of official foreign exchange. In Vallejo's case, various journalistic reports analyzed his profile as a financier with connections in the world of football and finance, which in some media are interpreted as ties to power circles in the previous officialism. Buenos Aires, December 30, 2025 - Total News Agency - TNA - Federal Justice is deepening a complex case that investigates a fraudulent circuit for the purchase and sale of dollars at the official price, whereby foreign exchange supplied by commercial banks would have been diverted to the Argentine parallel market in order to take advantage of the exchange rate gap generated by the strict cepo during the Alberto Fernández government. For the entity, this suggests the implementation of a “mechanism that, under the appearance of a regular operation, had the purpose of supplying the parallel market.” Mega Latina, for its part, would be involved in operations for 460 million dollars between January 2022 and August 2023. In Gallo Cambios's file, for example, it was identified that operations for 474 million dollars were not intended for end customers, but were transferred between operators, and that 92% of that foreign exchange was delivered in cash, thus losing all subsequent traceability. The monetary authority's report indicates that its authorization was “used as a legal screen” to carry out high-magnitude anti-regulatory operations. Although there are no formal judicial accusations against Massa to date, the political and economic context in which these maneuvers are inscribed will continue to be the subject of intense dispute both in courts and in the public and media arena. Sources consulted: TN24; Cadena Ritmo; La Nación; judicial and financial information on cases linked to exchange rate maneuvers; reports from the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic. Both cases involve Banco de Servicios y Transacciones, which appears as a provider of official dollars or as an entity where the exchange houses operated. In the file involving Concordia Inversiones, 68 transactions for less than 10 million dollars were detected between February and April 2023, where funds transferred to individuals were immediately withdrawn in cash. Part of that narrative is also linked to Claudio 'Chiqui' Tapia, president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), with whom Vallejo would have established prolonged commercial and financial ties.