Buenos Aires, January 10, 2026 – Total News Agency-TNA – The arrest and pre-trial detention of retired Colonel Pablo Guillermo Quiroga has once again put the parallel intelligence structure that operated during the governments of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner under scrutiny, with its epicenter in the Army and under the leadership of General César Milani, former head of Army Intelligence and former Chief of the Army General Staff. Quiroga, 63, was arrested at the end of November at Ezeiza International Airport upon returning from Peru and was processed by Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado for the crimes of conspiracy for drug smuggling and illegal possession of war weapons. According to the judicial resolution, Quiroga would have been the link between the drug traffickers and sectors of the PSA, taking advantage of his ties to security forces and former intelligence structures. During that period, the general consolidated a parallel structure within the Army that openly rivaled the traditional SIDE. Chats incorporated into the file show conversations about filming aircraft hangars and the possibility of conditioning panels to hide shipments. The current investigation against Quiroga is in the hands of the federal prosecutor of San Isidro, Fernando Domínguez, and originated from the analysis of the drug trafficker Martín Asci's cell phone, detained in a previous case. Both Pereyra and Quiroga are mentioned in different versions and investigations linked to the intelligence network that surrounded the murder of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, although without final convictions in that file. Milani, for his part, is being prosecuted in another case for trying to justify millionaire incomes and for the acquisition of a mansion in Martínez, a symbol of the economic power he accumulated during his rise as a strong man of Argentine intelligence during the Kirchnerist years. A system whose protagonists reappear today in criminal cases that mix espionage, power and organized crime. A fact that did not go unnoticed is that Quiroga is defended by Raúl Alberto Rosa, a lawyer with a past in the SIDE and in criminal intelligence during the management of Guillermo Montenegro. That hard core was key in the dispute for control of state intelligence during Kirchnerism, when the military sector led by Milani sought to displace the, admittedly, much questioned Horacio Stiuso, then director of Special Operations of the former SIDE. In that scheme, Pereyra fulfilled the role of liaison with the SIDE, but specifically with the sector that responded to Fernando Pocino, director of Interior Reunión, internally facing Stiuso. Quiroga was for years a close collaborator of Milani, integrating his maximum confidence operational group along with the non-commissioned officer Joaquín Conrado Pereyra and Colonel Marcelo Granito. At his home in the Los Castores neighborhood, in Nordelta, five weapons that were not in his name were seized, while the magistrate ordered a embargo for 100 million pesos. Exclusive with photos: Milani celebrates his 68th birthday with comrades, is sold as the next defense minister and then makes coup statements. Beyond the criminal file, the case acquires a political and high-voltage intelligence dimension. Although the smuggling did not materialize, the judge considered the preparatory acts accredited, framing them in the criminal figure of conspiracy provided for in law 23.737. The file also revealed serious leaks of sensitive information, which motivated the first removal of the PSA, (where today there are agents who worked with it) and then of the Argentine Federal Police from the investigation, which finally fell into the hands of the Gendarmerie. Rosa is known for his closeness to the Kirchnerian espionage apparatus. The fall of Quiroga not only exposes a supposed narco-network with ramifications in airports and security forces, but also illuminates again the functioning of an informal and opaque intelligence system that remains active and was consolidated during Kirchnerism, with Milani as the central figure.
