Nicki Minaj dating registered sex offender/convicted murderer as Corruption Scandals in Argentina Link Milei, Cristina Kirchner and Mauricio Macri

Corruption Scandals In Argentina Link Milei, Cristina Kirchner And Mauricio Macri

Senator Kueider, accused of corruption and caught with cash

“He better avoid walking out to his balcony,” said an incandescent José Mayans (Peronist Senator for the province of Formosa) during his speech in a last-minute session analyzing the fate of disgraced Senator Edgardo Kueider, accused of corruption, a few weeks ago. Explicit details below. “He knows too much, let’s hope he doesn’t fall from the seventh floor,” added Mayans, who is ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s eyes and ears in the Senate, where Kueider’s expulsion would grant the Unión por la Patria caucus an additional lawmaker, bringing their number of votes to 34, only two shy of quorum capacity. “He’s messed with some heavy-hitters and he knows it,” continued the Formosa senator. “They are protecting him now, but what will happen later, what else does Kueider know that he’s got protection from?” Mayans lashed out against the libertarians and Mauricio Macri’s PRO party, alleging that they had bribed legislators to pass the so-called ‘Ley de Bases’ mega-package of structural reforms.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner looks at Argentine President Mauricio Macri, before delivering a speech in Buenos Aires on Aug. 2, 2012.

Indeed, Kueider won his Senate seat for the province of Entre Ríos on the same ballot as Fernández de Kirchner in 2019, when she shared the ticket with Alberto Fernández. He later jumped ship along with Carlos Mauricio ‘Camau’ Espínola in 2024, and had since been vetted by star political advisor Santiago Caputo to lead the Bicameral Legislative Intelligence Commission, a position ultimately taken by Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) chief Martín Lousteau. Kueider ended up presiding over the Constitutional Issues Committee, before being expelled from the Senate a few weeks ago.

Caught with cash

Kueider’s situation is explicit, bombastic. But not uncommon in Argentine politics. The senator was detained by Paraguayan authorities around midnight on December 4 as he attempted to cross the Puente Internacional de la Libertad from the Brazilian border city of Foz do Iguaçu with $211,102 in undeclared funds in a backpack, as well as more than 600,000 pesos in cash. He was travelling with his personal assistant, Iara Guinsel Costa, who testified that the money was in her possession as an employee of Golsur SA, a mysterious construction company that had apparently granted her permission to use the funds to purchase electronic equipment. The duo had crossed into Ciudad del Este from Brazil, not Argentina. While Kueider claimed the money wasn’t his, it was found in a backpack that included his Senate ID card. According to the director of Paraguay’s tax authority, Oscar Orué, Kueider told officials detaining him that he was “close to the Milei administration” while noting that he was going to “have a lot of problems in Argentina if this becomes public.” After posting bail of $150,000 each, Kueider and Guinsel Costa remain under house arrest at a luxury condominium located in the capital city of Asunción. He’s not allowed to use the pool or any of the other amenities. Ignominiously, the former senator was kicked out from the upper chamber of Congress a few weeks ago, losing his parliamentary immunity, which opens the door to a potential extradition to Argentina after Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado ordered his arrest.

Kueider and Costa had crossed the bridge from Brazil to Paraguay driving a Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV belonging to Rodolfo González, a business associate of the now ex-senator, who is also an employee in the Library of Congress. They are business partners in a firm named Betail SA, which notably is under investigation by the Entre Ríos Province Judiciary for the acquisition of multiple apartments in the provincial capital of Paraná. The federal investigation for illicit enrichment, as it is known under Argentine law, is currently being carried by the aforementioned Arroyo Salgado.

Interestingly, in the immediate hours following Kueider’s detention, major political actors made attempts to distance themselves from him. President Javier Milei tweeted a picture of a 2019 electoral ballot showing Kueider alongside the Fernández-Fernández ticket. “All yours,” he wrote on the post. “If he was mine, he wouldn’t have voted in favor of the ’Ley de Bases’ law, dear Javier. You like peaches but you can’t deal with their fuzz. Kisses,” fired back CFK. The rest of the political ecosystem followed suit, trying to place Kueider within the ranks of their political opponents. Ultimately, after a special session was called in December, he was thrown out of the Senate with 60 votes against him from across the political spectrum, including the Peronists, Radicals, PRO, and even the libertarians. Kueider complained from home imprisonment in Paraguay that he wasn’t granted the constitutional right to defend himself, calling the move “institutional madness.”

Ritondo’s apartments

It was a busy month for corruption. In tandem with the Kueider scandal, one of Mauricio Macri’s leading political lieutenants was caught in a scandal involving his wife, offshore corporations and multiple properties in Florida. Cristian Ritondo, national deputy and head of the PRO party’s caucus in the lower house Chamber of Deputies, was found to have omitted from his sworn affidavit detailing his assets the small detail of a series of condominiums in the Miami-Dade area worth $2.6 million, according to an investigation by investigative journalist Emilia Delfino in ElDiarioAr. The ownership of these properties was masked by a series of shell corporations owned and operated by his wife, Romina Aldana Digo. Ritondo’s last official asset report put his net worth at 1.5 billion pesos in 2013, representing a 1,709-percent increase over the previous period. But he didn’t include his wife’s properties. For the time being, there hasn’t been much of a response from the political ecosystem, which is trying to find its bearings regarding a scandal that hits at one of the highest-profile national deputies in the country.

Prosecutor’s party

There were also reports of the extravagant party thrown by federal prosecutor Ramiro González, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday. A professionally shot and edited video of the party, exhibiting the luxuriousness of the evening, which included González dancing and even DJing, and a star performance by singer Cristian Castro, made the rounds. It was leaked by a social media account supposedly authored by former spy Fernando Pocino. The party counted on the presence of several major players from the federal justice system, commonly tied to the Comodoro Py courthouse near the Port of Buenos Aires. Among them were federal judges María Servini and Ariel Lijo, Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti, and Daniel Angelici, the controversial bingo businessman and “judicial operator” tied to Macri. A report in La Nación indicated that the event was attended by 190 people with food costs of about $180 per person, putting the basic going rate at a minimum of $34,000 before venue hire. These are expensive figures for anyone earning a salary in Argentina, even a Federal Prosecutor.

All of these scandals speak of an intrinsic culture of corruption within the Argentine political ecosystem. This is not new, and occasionally the issue returns to the center of the stage, especially when there are gross and graphic examples of corruption that seem to show the perpetrators acting as if they were untouchable. Kueider’s case, for example, crossing an international border with over $200,000, quickly went viral online. While he is correct in requesting his constitutional right to self-defence, the situation is self-evident. Much like prosecutor González’s fete, which looked more like a high-profile wedding than the 60th birthday party of a ranking member of the Judiciary. Even if he were able to pay for the event using just his salary as a public servant, hosting such a luxurious party in the context of a deep recession is at least out of touch. Ritondo’s undeclared Miami apartments may appear a bit more distant to the general public given the complex structure under which they were held, but it also points to seeming conflicts of interest and other improprieties that should be investigated.

Everyone should be granted the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, but in Argentina, where the judiciary is always under suspicion of political and commercial manipulation, society has already made its guilty verdict in these cases. The same things happened during the early days of the Macri administration, where the excesses of the Kirchner era were quickly investigated, and several high profile officials including former vice president Amado Boudou and Julio De Vido, Public Works Secretary, were arrested in demeaning ways. To a certain extent it speaks of a renewed interest in the public opinion about corruption which seems to be tied to the taming of inflation and renewed economic expectations. But it also sends the wrong signs, suggesting to whoever is in power that the judiciary will move politically to expose those it considers weak and expendable. Corruption should be consistently investigated by an impartial judiciary, an independent press, and an informed public. The impunity of public servants should be punished severely, regardless of the political slant of the current administration and the perpetrators. And constitutional rights should be respected, even if the evidence appears to quickly indicate blame. There’s a lot more of these kinds of characters in the political ecosystem throughout the spectrum.

As a result,

Nicki Minaj is dating a registered sex offender and convicted murderer…

Yes, Nicki Minaj is dating a registered sex offender and convicted murderer!

The Queen rapper has been spotted cozying up with Kenneth Petty, who was convicted of attempted rape and manslaughter

Nicki Minaj hasn’t exactly kept the best company the last few months. The Queen rapper recently appeared on Dummy Boy, the new album from Tekashi 6ix9ine, who’s currently facing 32 years in prison for armed robbery, conspiracy to commit murder, and drug distribution. Now, it appears Minaj is dating Kenneth “Zoo” Petty”, a 40-year-old convicted sex offender and murderer.