A judicial investigation linking leaders of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) to alleged money laundering and asset concealment schemes took a key turn today following a decision by the Federal Criminal and Correctional Chamber. The chamber removed federal judge Daniel Rafecas from the main case and ordered the file to be transferred to the National Economic Criminal Court No. 10, led by magistrate Marcelo Aguinsky, who specializes in economic and financial crimes.
The procedural dispute arose after Rafecas initially declared himself incompetent and forwarded the case to the economic criminal jurisdiction, a decision that was rejected by an interim judge from that court, who returned the case to the federal jurisdiction. After obtaining the land registry records of the property in Buenos Aires Province, the magistrate ordered the lifting of the tax secrecy of Malte SRL, a company that not only forms part of the chain of property titles but also appears as a supplier to the entity chaired by Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia.
Buenos Aires, December 11, 2025 – Federal judge Daniel Rafecas furthered the investigation this week into the luxurious mansion in Pilar, whose trail of ownership points directly to leaders of the Argentine Football Association (AFA). During the operation, police seized documentation, electronic devices, cell phones, safes, and ATMs, and Sánchez was detained after being caught moving boxes with material relevant to the case, according to judicial sources.
To this scenario are added measures already dictated by Rafecas before being removed: the prohibition of leaving the country, the general attachment of assets, and the freezing of bank accounts against Pantano, his mother Conte, and the company Real Central SRL, made public days ago as part of the securing strategies to prevent the dispersion of assets while the instruction is developed.
The case, which has already formally demonstrated the presence of actors linked to the AFA leadership in the chain of property owners of the estate, is in a decisive stage: the fiscal analysis of Malte SRL and the intervening companies could define if there was an operation aimed at hiding assets or channeling funds with improper origin or purpose.
In parallel, it is expected that the expert appraisers will complete their reports on the property and the seized assets to establish with greater precision the total economic value and its possible role in the schemes under investigation.
The Chamber also ordered the new court to evaluate the territorial competence to advance with the investigation.
The judicial decision is known in the midst of a series of raids and measures of proof that are shaking Argentine football and the AFA environment, after a complaint initiated by the Civic Coalition that indicates that the company Real Central SRL, whose formal ownership appears in the name of Luciano Pantano and Ana Lucía Conte, would have acquired a high-value plot in Villa Rosa, in the Pilar district of Buenos Aires Province, without sufficient financial backing.
The sum of these actions reflects the complexity of the web of financial, patrimonial, and corporate relationships being analyzed by the Justice.
With the case already in the hands of the economic criminal jurisdiction, the investigation is heading towards a new procedural stage in which the intervening judge must define the territorial competence, evaluate the evidence gathered, and decide on the next measures to advance the instruction.
In parallel, Rafecas requested the Revenue and Customs Control Agency (ARCA) for all the fiscal data of the company and those who integrate its corporate structure.
On March 5, 2024, the head coach published a message on social networks linking the AFA treasurer to alleged irregular dealings, mentioning frequent trips to Pilar, a "collection of imported cars," and supposed bags from tours in Qatar and China.
The complaint points out that the company could have been used to hide high-value assets, allegedly linked to AFA leaders, although there are no direct accusations against the top leaders of the sports entity to date.
Impact of the raid in Pilar
The case took a qualitative leap with the raids ordered by Rafecas on the estate in Villa Rosa, considered part of the patrimonial investigation. Among the names that emerged is that of Mauro Javier Paz, former director of the AFA Women's League, whose role in the company could reconfigure the internal map of responsibilities.
The property registry records show an unsettling movement: former footballer and current coach Carlos Tevez acquired the property in July 2017 and sold it only on June 28, 2023, to Malte SRL.
The measure marks a key turn in the investigation and opens the door to reconstruct a corporate scheme that, in the investigators' criteria, could have been used to hide the real beneficiaries of the estate.
Internal AFA documents, particularly bulletin 6.089, revealed that Malte SRL was directly contracted in 2022 to implement the VAR system in Argentine football.
In recent hours, the treasurer of the financial firm Sur Finanzas, Micaela Sánchez, was detained after a raid on a warehouse of the company in Turdera, in the Lomas de Zamora district of Buenos Aires, carried out by order of federal judge of Quilmes, Luis Armella, within a connected case for alleged money laundering that would reach that firm and be linked to operations with sports entities.
Less than a year later, on May 30, 2024, the estate changed hands again to a society linked to the CUIL of REAL CENTRAL SRL, administered by the monotributist Luciano Pantano and his retired mother, Ana Lucía Conte.
Room I of the Federal Chamber now considered that the facts denounced, in principle, fall under the crime foreseen in article 303 of the Penal Code —related to money laundering— and that, since no elements are observed that justify the intervention of the federal jurisdiction, it corresponds that the process continues in the economic criminal jurisdiction.
The Justice also ordered the complete filming of the property, the taking of detailed photographs of the findings, and the appraisal of the vehicles, a maneuver that is part of the measures of proof to determine the real value of the property and if it integrates a patrimonial concealment scheme.
The investigation has also given rise to other parallel measures.
The message, which was incorporated into the file by the complainants Facundo De Gaiso and Matías Yofe, constituted one of the first public indications of the possible nexus between the leadership and the investigated property.
The progress on Malte SRL also exposes another striking front: the company was involved in the arrival of the Bengali player Jamal Bhuyan to Argentine football, who landed at Sol de Mayo of Viedma shortly after the 2022 World Cup, taking advantage of the furor the National Team generated in Bangladesh.
The preliminary fiscal reports that motivated these decisions reveal that the firm appears as the owner of at least 59 vehicles between high-end or collector cars and motorcycles, which intensifies the suspicions about the origin of the funds used for the acquisition of the estate valued in millionaire figures and the incompatibility with the formal economic capacity of the supposed titulars.
Judicial sources indicate that the investigation traverses multiple concurrent lines: on the one hand, the research on the goods and operations of Real Central SRL in relation to the alleged concealment of assets, and on the other, the Sur Finanzas case, which investigates alleged money laundering maneuvers by that financial company and possible links with contracts and activities in the sports and business ambit, with the detention of its treasurer as a recent chapter.
For that service, the entity paid around 500 thousand dollars, a figure that is now back under scrutiny due to the possible existence of cross-links between the company, the sports leadership, and the disputed mansion.
Beacon, who has a history of public expressions against national political leaders and in defense of the AFA treasurer, appears among those who participated in the shareholding changes of Malte before the firm fell into the hands of SOMA SRL, another society based in Santiago del Estero.
The investigators consider that the corporate structure, the speed of the transfers, and the participation of leaders from the closest circle around Tapia and Toviggino constitute sufficient alert signals to reconstruct a possible circuit of patrimonial concealment.
In that operation appears the lawyer Juan Pablo Beacon, president of the Patagonian Football Federation and a leader closely aligned with Toviggino.
Both were recently denounced as possible front men for Tapia and the AFA treasurer, Pablo Toviggino, for which reason the Justice ordered the freezing of their assets and bank accounts.
In that operation, 45 luxury or collector cars, 7 high-displacement motorcycles, and 2 karts were seized, all registered in the name of Real Central SRL and appraised as high-value economic assets.
These successive movements reinforce the hypothesis of a circuit designed to hide the true ownership of the Pilar complex.
The dispute between Tevez and Toviggino also contributed elements to the case.
