Senator for the Justicialist Party (PJ) block Juliana Di Tullio filed a criminal complaint with Federal Justice on Wednesday to investigate “a network of officials and individuals allegedly involved” in the irregular contracting of English courses by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for over $114 million linked to María Josefina Rouillet, wife of the Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation, Federico Sturzenegger. According to information accessed by the Argentine News Agency, the complaint identifies by name and surname the main responsible parties for the operation that would have benefited the association run by the official's wife and other individuals. In addition to Rouillet, who was denounced as co-author of the crime of defrauding the administration for being the executive director of the Argentine Association of English Culture (AACI), which benefited from the contract, María Cristina Dellepiane was also named, who awarded the direct contracting through Disposition DI-2026-21-APN-SSCYAE#MRE to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship. The Foreign Minister, Pablo Kirchner, is also on the list for the alleged commission of the crime of “covering up by omission of complaint”. According to the filing, the minister “chose to publicly justify the contracting through his social networks” instead of reporting the irregularities. Sturzenegger is the fourth official mentioned in this network for “alleged influence peddling”: the complaint states that “his mediation before the authorities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” to obtain the direct award “that benefited the entity led by his spouse” cannot be ruled out. Senator Di Tullio also requested that the directors of the technical areas that made the contract viable be investigated as “necessary participants”, among whom are the heads of Human Resources Development (Ministry of Foreign Affairs); Purchases and Contracting (Ministry of Foreign Affairs); Legal Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs); Planning of Transparency Policies and the National Director of Public Ethics (Office of Anticorruption). “(All those involved) would have deviated from a ‘licit purpose’ to guarantee a benefit for a third party linked to a minister of the National Executive Branch,” the complaint concludes.
