MiDire

📅 Updated: June 2026
⏱ Reading time: 9 minutes
✍️ Political Writing | Special Research

The judicial investigation into Manuel Adorni's assets escalated in recent days after his statements about Bitcoin savings found on a pen drive. The opposition demands explanations and the case generates tension within the government of Javier Milei.

Manuel Adorni, Adorni heritage, Bitcoin Adorni, Adorni cryptocurrencies, Adorni judicial investigation, Javier Milei, Congress, Adorni affidavit, illicit enrichment, Argentine politics.

The situation of the Argentine Chief of Staff, Manuel Adorni, became one of the main focuses of political conflict for the administration of Javier Milei.

What began as an investigation into asset inconsistencies ended up becoming a nationwide political scandal after Adorni attributed part of his economic growth to investments in Bitcoin and funds stored on a pen drive that, according to his version, had remained lost for years. (Checked)

The explanation, far from closing the doubts, opened new judicial and political questions.

The Justice is trying to determine if there is a correspondence between the income declared by the official and the significant increase registered in his assets during the last years.

According to documents and public statements analyzed by different media, Adorni made rectifications in his affidavits and incorporated assets linked to cryptocurrencies that were not previously listed in official records. (Checked)

The prosecutor's office seeks to establish if the documentation presented is sufficient to explain the accumulated assets and rule out possible irregularities. (Filo News)

During television interviews and subsequent public clarifications, Adorni maintained that part of his wealth comes from an investment made years ago in Bitcoin.

According to his account, he would have invested approximately USD 200,000 in cryptocurrencies and later obtained profits close to USD 300,000. Part of those assets were stored in a digital wallet contained in a pen drive that, he said, remained lost for a while before being recovered. (Instagram)

Specialists consulted by different media recalled that operations carried out through blockchain usually leave verifiable traces, allowing movements, dates and transfers associated with digital wallets to be reconstructed. (Infobae)

One of the elements that arouses the most interest among researchers and analysts is the possibility of reconstructing the financial history of digital assets.

Unlike cash, transactions recorded on the blockchain can leave verifiable technical evidence.

Experts in financial technology pointed out that, if the wallets used are identified, movements, purchase dates, sales and transfers could be analyzed to determine if the explanations match existing records. (Infobae)

This aspect could become one of the most relevant pieces of evidence in the file.

Various political sectors are promoting requests for reports, subpoenas and parliamentary measures aimed at clarifying the origin of the declared funds. (El País)

🔹 Possible impact on the transparency standards required of public officials.

The case has already begun to occupy a large part of the legislative agenda and threatens to become a new front of attrition for the ruling party.

Although publicly President Milei maintains his political support for Adorni, different journalistic versions indicate that the episode generated discomfort within sectors of the ruling party. (El País)

The main concern would not be linked exclusively to the judicial aspect but to the political cost of a controversy that contradicts one of the main discursive axes of the libertarian administration: the fight against privileges and corruption.

Political sources consulted by national media describe a scenario where the continuity of the controversy threatens to displace other priority issues on the government's agenda. (El País)

Among the statements that generated the greatest impact is a statement made by Adorni when referring to his personal savings.

The official said that many Argentines had historically chosen to keep money outside the formal circuits to protect themselves from inflation and tax pressure. That explanation was interpreted by critics and opponents as an admission of having kept undeclared funds. (Infobae)

The repercussions multiplied both in the political sphere and on social networks.

Beyond the possible judicial consequences, the case raises questions about the mechanisms of patrimonial control applied to public officials.

Transparency specialists point out that situations of this type usually generate three immediate effects:

Public confidence is affected when there are doubts about the consistency of asset declarations.

The opposition finds arguments to question the government while the ruling party is forced to defend its officials.

The investigation into Manuel Adorni's assets has become one of the most delicate political episodes for Javier Milei's government since the beginning of his administration.

While the Justice tries to determine if there is sufficient documentation to support the origin of the declared funds, the opposition intensifies parliamentary pressure and the ruling party faces the challenge of managing a crisis that directly affects its discourse on transparency and public ethics. (Filo News)

The result of the asset expertise, the analysis of the operations linked to cryptocurrencies and the judicial decisions that may arise in the coming weeks will be decisive in defining the political future of one of the officials closest to President Milei. (Infobae)

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HISTORIC RULING: The Federal Court of Córdoba ordered to pay $95 million to the family of a young woman who died after the Sputnik V vaccine

The Federal Court of Appeals of Córdoba determined that Melín Agustina Sartori, 24, died as a direct result of an adverse effect of the Sputnik V vaccine. The ruling, unprecedented in Argentina, obliges the Ministry of Health of the Nation to pay compensation equivalent to 240 minimum retirement benefits – about 95 million pesos – and sets a precedent that could reopen the debate on state responsibility in mass vaccination campaigns.

📋 CASE FILE

🩺 MELÍN'S STORY: A YOUNG WOMAN WITH NO RECORD

Melín Agustina Sartori was 24 years old and, as described by her entourage during the judicial process, she was in excellent health. He practiced sports regularly and had just started a family business making artisanal pasta. Her family remembered her as a young woman socially committed, generous and full of projects.

On July 15, 2021, Melín went to the Orfeo Superdome in the city of Córdoba to receive the first dose of the Sputnik V vaccine, as part of the national immunization campaign against COVID-19. He did not have any pre-existing pathology that could condition a severe adverse reaction. He was, apparently, the profile of the person that every health campaign considers to be of low risk.

Six days after vaccination, on July 21, he began to show symptoms that at first seemed minor: intense headaches and persistent vomiting. In a first medical consultation, the condition was interpreted as gastroenteritis and the young woman was sent home. However, two days later spontaneous bruises appeared on her face and signs of neurological deterioration that alerted her family.

Hospitalized urgently, laboratory studies revealed an alarming panorama: a platelet count of just 27,000/mm³, when normal values range between 150,000 and 400,000. The diagnosis confirmed a thrombosis syndrome with thrombocytopenia (TTS), also known in the international scientific literature as VITT (Vaccine-Induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis). The condition progressed rapidly, causing irreversible neurological deterioration. Melín underwent surgery that failed to reverse the damage. He died on July 29, 2021, just 14 days after receiving the vaccine.

🧬 WHAT IS VITT: THE SYNDROME THAT SCIENCE WAS SLOW TO RECOGNIZE

VITT syndrome (vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia) is an extremely rare adverse reaction that was identified and documented worldwide during COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, mainly associated with adenoviral vector technology vaccines, such as AstraZeneca/ChAdOx1 and Sputnik V itself.

The mechanism is autoimmune in nature: the body generates IgG antibodies directed against platelet factor 4 (FP4), which triggers a paradoxical activation of platelets, simultaneously generating clots in blood vessels and a drastic drop in platelet count. The clinical paradox—thrombosis and thrombocytopenia at the same time—is what makes VITT especially severe and difficult to treat with conventional protocols.

Symptoms of VITT usually develop 4 to 30 days after vaccination. In Sartori's case, they appeared on the sixth day. According to the Clinical Hospital of the University of Santiago de Compostela, cited in studies included in the file, it is an event of very low incidence in relation to the total number of doses administered worldwide, although with high mortality once the condition reaches advanced stages.

A report prepared by specialists from the Institute of Pharmacovigilance Sciences of the University of Southampton (United Kingdom), published in The New England Journal of Medicine and assessed by the court, concluded that Melín Sartori's case met the criteria for level 1 of the determination of certainty of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia.

📁 THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE: FIVE YEARS OF STRUGGLE

After the death of her daughter, María Virginia Ruiz filed a claim with the COVID-19 Reparation Fund, the mechanism created by Law 27,573 and Decree 431/2021 to compensate people who had suffered physical harm or died as a direct result of the vaccines applied during the pandemic. However, the administrative path was as tortuous as the judicial process that would follow.

In the first instance, the Superintendence of Labor Risks (SRT) rejected the request. The National Commission for Vaccine Safety (Conaseva) had classified the adverse event as "Indeterminate B1", concluding that there was insufficient scientific evidence to establish a direct causal relationship between the Sputnik V vaccine and the death. The family was not satisfied with that answer and decided to take the case to the federal courts.

The judicial process lasted for almost five years. During that time, the international scientific consensus on VITT matured and consolidated. In May 2024, a turning point: Conaseva itself reviewed the file and, based on the new medical evidence available, reclassified the event. The commission concluded that there was "evidence of causality with the vaccine" and elevated the case to the "A1 Related" category, the highest level of causal certainty on the post-vaccine adverse event rating scale.

That reclassification was a central element for the final resolution of the Chamber. Lawyer Barbará also pointed out that Sputnik V "did not have pharmacovigilance", that is, it did not have a continuous monitoring system for adverse reactions comparable to that of other vaccines authorized by international organizations such as the EMA or the FDA, which made it difficult to detect and recognize this type of event early.

⚖️ THE RULING: WHAT THE FEDERAL COURT SAID

Chamber A of the Federal Court of Appeals of Córdoba, made up of Judges Liliana Navarro and Graciela Montesi together with Judge Eduardo Ávalos, issued a resolution that legal doctrine already points out as historic in terms of the civil liability of the State in the face of adverse effects of vaccines.

The ruling states that "based on the elements gathered, it is possible to conclude that the event is related to the placement of the Sputnik V vaccine." The court assessed, among other evidence: the medical reports that detected IgG antibodies against FP4; the expert testimonies of hematologist Ana Romina Montivero and pharmacovigilance expert Raquel Herrera Comoglio, who stated that the absence of heparin allowed them to conclude "without a doubt" that the picture corresponded to a VITT triggered by the vaccine; and the 2024 Conaseva reclassification itself.

Judge Liliana Navarro was especially blunt in her vote: "The discussion on the causal link, far from persisting, is technically clear." The ruling also clarifies that the current regulations do not require absolute certainty, but that it is enough to prove the damage and its causal link through the preponderance of the evidence, a standard that, in the court's opinion, the victim's mother satisfied "comfortably".

The ruling also specifies that the judgment will be final subject to the appeals that the parties may file. The Ministry of Health of the Nation, represented in the process, had not issued public comments at the time of going to press.

🏛️ LEGAL FRAMEWORK: LAW 27,573 AND THE REPARATION FUND

Law 27,573, enacted in November 2020 during the presidency of Alberto Fernández, authorized the National Executive Branch to enter into contracts for the provision of vaccines against COVID-19 and established, among its provisions, the creation of a Reparation Fund aimed at compensating people who suffered physical harm as a direct result of immunization.

Decree 431/2021 regulated access to this fund, establishing that claimants had to prove the causal link through specialized medical commissions and that the corresponding compensation would be calculated based on minimum retirement benefits, a formula that the Córdoba ruling applied to set $95 million.

However, as evidenced in the Sartori case, the administrative mechanism proved insufficient to guarantee effective access to reparation. The family had to go through almost five years of legal litigation to obtain the recognition of a right that the law had provided. This gap between the regulatory design and the practical reality of its application is one of the points that the ruling implicitly highlights.

▪ Law 27,573 (Nov. 2020): authorization of vaccine contracts and creation of the Reparation Fund.

▪ Decree 431/2021: regulation of access to the fund and methodology for calculating compensation.

▪ Joint Resolution 7/2022: administrative procedure for the processing of complaints.

▪ Conaseva reclassification (May 2024): official recognition of the causal link "Related A1".

🌐 PRECEDENT AND REPERCUSSIONS: WHAT CAN CHANGE?

The ruling of the Federal Court of Córdoba is not only the resolution of an individual case. It is the first of its kind in Argentina to judicially establish the causal relationship between a COVID-19 vaccine and a death, also ordering concrete reparations to the State. As such, it sets a legal precedent that specialists in health law already describe as of enormous significance.

First, the ruling could encourage other families who went through similar situations – and whose claims were rejected or are pending in administrative proceedings – to resort to the courts with a greater probability of success. Argentina applied more than 100 million doses of different vaccines against COVID-19 between 2021 and 2023. Although VITT is statistically rare, even a minimal incidence rate over that volume can account for tens or hundreds of cases.

Secondly, the precedent puts under the magnifying glass the pharmacovigilance system with which Sputnik V operated in Argentina. Lawyer Barbará was explicit in pointing out that the Russian vaccine did not have the continuous monitoring mechanisms that other vaccines approved in the framework of complete clinical trials by bodies such as the EMA or the FDA had. That absence of robust safety data made it difficult for years to recognize serious adverse effects.

Thirdly, the case reopens the debate on the responsibility of the State when, in the context of a global health emergency, it authorises and massively promotes a vaccine that did not complete all the usual approval steps. The balance between epidemiological urgency and individual safety is a tension that international health law has been discussing since the first months of the pandemic, and that this ruling turns into a concrete legal issue with economic consequences for the Argentine public treasury.

🔍 CONTEXT: SPUTNIK V IN ARGENTINA

The Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Federation, was the first to be authorized for emergency use in Argentina, in December 2020, during the government of Alberto Fernández. The decision was controversial from the beginning: the vaccine had completed only phase II of its clinical trials at the time of Argentine authorization, and bodies such as the EMA never approved it for use in the European Union.

Argentina acquired millions of doses of Sputnik V and applied it massively during the first half of 2021, at a time when the availability of other vaccines was still limited. The vaccine was the basis for the start of the national vaccination plan for broad sectors of the population. In October 2021, the Argentine State returned to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) more than 1.3 million doses that had been requested to replace other items.

The Sartori case is the first in which the Argentine justice system formally establishes that a death that occurred during that campaign was causally linked to the Russian vaccine. The symbolic and legal impact of that determination is hard to overestimate.

🗝️ 5 KEYS TO THE RULING TO UNDERSTAND ITS SCOPE

▪ First ruling of its kind in Argentina. No Argentine court ruling had previously established the causal relationship between a COVID-19 vaccine and a death, also ordering economic reparations to the State.

▪ The evidentiary standard is the "preponderance of the evidence." The court made it clear that the law does not require absolute certainty to access compensation, which opens the door to other similar cases.

▪ The reclassification of Conaseva was decisive. The technical body recognized in 2024 the causal link that it had initially denied, radically changing the balance of the file.

▪ The absence of pharmacovigilance is a central argument. The case exposes the fragility of the safety monitoring system with which Sputnik V operated in Argentina, a vaccine that never received approval from the EMA or the FDA.

▪ The State has 30 days to act. If the Ministry of Health does not complete the procedure within the established period, the family could request measures of forced execution of the sentence.

📝 FINAL REFLECTION: JUSTICE, SCIENCE AND PANDEMIC

The case of Melín Agustina Sartori condenses, in its individual tragedy, some of the deepest tensions left by the COVID-19 pandemic: the urgency of protecting lives versus the need for scientific guarantees on the safety of the instruments used; political pressure on regulatory bodies; the speed with which science had to advance in conditions of radical uncertainty; and the duty of democracies to take responsibility for the damage caused to those who trusted the decisions of the State.

None of this implies that mass vaccination was a wrong decision. The scientific consensus is clear: COVID-19 vaccines saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. VITT, as tragic as it is in the cases in which it occurs, has a statistically very low incidence. But precisely because public health policies are implemented on a massive scale, compensation systems for those who suffer exceptional harm must be effective, accessible, and fair.

It took María Virginia Ruiz almost five years to obtain the recognition that her daughter died as a result of a vaccine that the State instructed her to apply. That time cannot be erased. But the ruling of the Federal Court of Córdoba establishes, at least, that the justice system can do what the bureaucracy could not: recognize the truth and order reparations.

#SputnikV #FalloHistórico #CórdobaJusticia #VacunasCOVID #VITT #Trombocitopenia #IndemizaciónCOVID #DerechoSanitario #Ley27573 #FondoReparaciónCOVID #CámaraFederal #MelínSartori #EfectosAdversos #Pandemia #JusticiaCórdoba

The Argentina of 2026 is a shocking paradox: fields that break historical production records, inflation that fell from 25% per month to around 2-3%, a fiscal surplus not seen in 15 years... and yet factories work at 53.8% of their capacity, SMEs close daily, retirees struggle to make ends meet and domestic consumption continues to be flattened. How is it possible that with so many positive indicators the real economy does not take off? This article attempts to answer that question with data, analysis, and historical perspective.

📉 The adjustment that balanced the accounts but deactivated the economy

In December 2023, Argentina had a primary deficit of 2.9% of GDP and a financial deficit of 6.1%. The photo was untenable. The government of Javier Milei arrived with a unique and radical promise: fiscal balance at any cost, the famous 'chainsaw'. And it delivered: in 2024 the primary surplus reached 2.1% of GDP, with a positive financial result of 0.3%, the first since 2010.

But the mechanism was surgical only in the accounting area. Real public spending fell by 27.5% – the largest contraction since 1994. The cuts mainly affected retirements and pensions (25.3% of the total adjustment), public works (23.2%), energy subsidies (14.5%), social programs (8.8%) and public sector salaries (8.6%).

❝ What Milei did is a classic recessive adjustment, which is not very different from previous experiments. ❞
— Martín Epstein, analyst at the Center for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA)

The result was predictable by any macroeconomic textbook: with liquefied incomes and spending cut, domestic demand collapsed. GDP fell by a cumulative 3% in 2024. VAT collection – the tax that most accurately reflects consumption – fell by 16.3% year-on-year in real terms in the first half of the year. Profits, another −13%. Tax collection itself, which should have been financed by the State, fell by 6.6% in real terms in the first eleven months of the year.

The irony is geometric: by destroying the demand to balance the accounts, the tax base that sustains those accounts was also destroyed. A dog biting its tail.

🌾 Record harvests that do not feed the domestic market

The 2025/2026 agricultural season recorded extraordinary numbers: 49.9 million tons of soybeans, 70 million tons of corn – the highest volume in twenty years – and 7.4 million tons of sunflower, a historic record. The Argentine countryside produces like never before.

However, this agrarian wealth does not translate into internal economic dynamism. Why? Because the agro-export model, by definition, exports. Foreign currency comes in, pays debt, strengthens reserves, and in the best of cases finances public spending through withholdings. But the farmer who sold his soybeans does not necessarily buy a refrigerator manufactured in Córdoba or hire a gas operator from Rosario.

The oil industry processed a record 47.6 million tonnes in 2025, with idle capacity of 28.2%, the lowest since 2011. But the rest of the manufacturing industry tells another story: in December 2025, the utilization of general industrial installed capacity fell to 53.8%. Almost half of the machines in Argentina were stopped or running at half speed.

❝ 53.8% means that almost half of the productive capacity is idle, which has an impact on employment, tax revenues and sustainability of SMEs. ❞
— The Blender / Industrial Analysis, February 2026

This is the heart of the structural problem that the article seeks to illuminate: without domestic demand, production cannot scale; and without scale, unit costs skyrocket. Economies of scale work in both directions.

⚙️ The Fixed Cost Trap and the Reverse Spiral

A company that produces 1,000 units per month has its fixed costs – rent, permanent payroll, amortization of equipment, insurance, services – distributed among those 1,000 units. If demand falls to 500 units, those same fixed costs are spread across half of the products: the cost per unit doubles. The company has two options: raise prices – aggravating the fall in consumption – or close.

This mechanism, perfectly described by classical economic theory, is exactly what is destroying the Argentine SME industry. It is not business mismanagement. It is not a lack of intrinsic competitiveness. It is the implacable logic of economies of scale working in reverse: fewer sales → more unit cost → less competitiveness → fewer sales. A downward spiral that no entrepreneur can stop alone.

👴 Pensions, wages and informality: the tripod of lost consumption

The revival of a depressed economy is not an academic mystery. Keynes explained it almost a century ago: when the private sector does not invest and consumers do not spend – because they can't – it is the state that must inject demand. The most direct and efficient mechanism is to put money in the pockets of those who have the greatest marginal propensity to consume: those who earn less, because they spend practically everything they receive, and immediately, in the local market.

In Argentina, this profile corresponds exactly to retirees, workers in the informal sector and formal salaried workers with medium and low incomes. They are the three broken links in the consumption chain.

👵 Pension cuts as a brake on consumption

Retirements and pensions absorbed 25.3% of the total adjustment in 2024. The initial devaluation of the peso in December 2023 – a jump of 114% – liquefied fixed incomes in real time. Although retirement mobility later recovered some ground, the government vetoed in August 2024 a law of Congress that would have more aggressively recomposed pensions.

A retiree who receives the minimum salary or just above it does not save: he spends everything on food, medicine and basic services. Every additional peso that reaches that pocket almost immediately becomes local economic activity, VAT collected, a grocer who sells more and hires someone. Each weight cut makes the reverse path.

💼 The informal economy: 40% of the labor market that does not exist for the system

According to the OECD, informality in Argentina is high in international comparison. Argentina's social protection system has almost universal pension coverage in terms of access, but it is financed through high social security contributions that raise the cost of creating formal employment. The result: a labor market where about 40% of active workers operate in the informal sector, without contributions, without access to formal credit, without a safety net.

These people produce, sell, serve—they sustain entire microeconomies in popular neighborhoods—but they do not exist for the tax system or for the financial system. They cannot access bank loans, they will not qualify for a dignified retirement, and their consumption does not generate the multiplier effect that the registered worker does.

Incorporating them into the formal system – simplifying burdens, creating progressive regimes, lowering the labor cost of the first links – is not an expense: it is an investment that expands the tax base and the consumer market simultaneously.

❝ The pandemic clearly exposed the vulnerabilities of the model: while formal employees retained some coverage, informal employees were among the most affected by job losses, poverty, and exclusion. ❞
— OECD, Report on Informality in Latin America, 2025

🏢 The RIGI: mortgaging the future to attract the present?

The Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI) is probably the most structural and controversial measure of the Milei government. In terms of design, it seeks to attract foreign direct investment to strategic sectors – energy, mining, hydrocarbons – by offering a menu of tax and regulatory benefits for a period of up to 30 years: a reduction in income tax to 25%, guaranteed tax stability, free availability of foreign currency and access to foreign markets without restrictions.

The IMF noted that RIGI has already attracted investment commitments of $12 billion. The regime's defenders argue that Argentina needs capital to develop Vaca Muerta, lithium and other natural riches that for decades were underdeveloped. They are not wrong in the diagnosis.

But the debate is about the asymmetry of the treatment. While the large companies benefiting from the RIGI have access to direct external financing, guaranteed regulatory stability for three decades and a substantially lower tax burden, Argentine SMEs – 99% of the country's business fabric – face the highest tax burden in their recent history.

The question that Argentine society has the right to ask itself is: what is left for the country when an international consortium extracts lithium or oil with guaranteed fiscal stability for 30 years? The answer depends on how much is negotiated in terms of local employment, national suppliers, technology transfer and royalties. If these conditions are not well agreed, the RIGI may become the largest legal business in Argentine history for its beneficiaries... and a mortgage for generations to come.

That Vaca Muerta and lithium develop is desirable and essential. That they do so under conditions that structurally benefit Argentina – and not only the shareholders of Amsterdam or New York – is the difference between a state policy and a liquidation of strategic assets.

💡 Surplus is not a panacea: the state is not a company

The official discourse celebrates the fiscal surplus as if it were the end in itself of economic policy. "Zero deficit" is repeated like a mantra, as if the accounting balance automatically guarantees the well-being of the population. This conceptual confusion is, perhaps, the most costly intellectual error of the current model.

A private company aims to accumulate capital: earn more than it spends, grow, distribute profits to its shareholders. The logic of the surplus makes sense in that context. But the State is not a company. Its function is not to accumulate: it is to allocate resources to maximize collective well-being, to provide the public goods that the market does not provide on its own – education, health, infrastructure, security – and in times of economic contraction, to act as a demander of last resort to prevent the recession from feeding on itself.

❝ To speak of surplus as a panacea is to be wrong, when it is the State and not a private company. We are depriving thousands of benefits based on the belief that the State needs to accumulate instead of distribute. ❞
— Central argument of the Argentine economic debate, 2026

The economist John Maynard Keynes formulated it clearly in the 1930s, looking at another Great Depression: when all private agents withdraw simultaneously, the sum of rational individual decisions produces an irrational collective result. The State, the only agent that can act against the current, must do so. A surplus in a context of deep recession is not a virtue: it is procyclical and aggravates the problem.

The relevant nuance is that Argentina cannot ignore its restrictions: decades of deficits financed by issuance generated structural inflation that destroyed the purchasing power of several generations. It is not a question of returning to irresponsible spending. It is a question of finding the balance between fiscal sustainability and the reactivation of the internal market. That balance exists; Finding it requires creativity, not dogmatism.

🔄 The recovery that does not come for everyone

The data for 2025 show mixed signals. GDP grew by about 4.3% annually, driven by agriculture, mining and energy – the sectors benefited by the RIGI and the record harvest. But that growth is partial and concentrated. Manufacturing and construction cooled in the third quarter. SMEs in the food and pharmaceutical sector recorded significant job losses. The dynamism does not spill over.

This is the scenario of a two-speed economy: an Argentina that exports raw materials and energy resources with record numbers, and another Argentina of shops, workshops, private clinics and medium-sized factories that has not yet recovered the level of activity of 2022.

🚀 The explosion of possible consumption: what is needed

The reactivation of domestic consumption does not require magic or a new heterodox experiment. It requires the application of known, gradual and bankable mechanisms:

📌 Real recomposition of pensions: the average pension must recover genuine purchasing power, not just keep track of inflation that has already subsided. Every additional peso that comes to a retiree is spent entirely in the local market.

📌 Income policy for the formal sector: registered wages lost ground compared to the devaluation of December 2023. A pattern of real recovery, albeit gradual, stabilises demand and reduces social conflict.

📌 Incentivized formalization of informal employment: reducing the labor cost of the first links of formal employment – social monotax, simplified regimes – expands the consumer base and the tax base simultaneously.

📌 Productive credit for SMEs: Of 600,000 registered companies, only 62,000 accessed guaranteed credit in 2025. Scaling up that access is cheaper than any foreign investment incentive plan.

📌 Strategic public works: road, water and energy infrastructure have a proven multiplier effect. Each peso spent on public works generates 1.3 to 1.8 pesos of economic activity. Freezing it in the name of fiscal balance is a false saving.

📌 Equity in the tax burden: while SMEs pay twice as much as RIGI beneficiaries, competition is distorted from the beginning. Leveling does not mean destroying incentives for large investment; it means not suffocating the business fabric that employs 70% of registered workers.

🎯 Conclusion: the balance that is missing is not only fiscal

The Argentina of 2026 achieved something that seemed impossible two years ago: lower inflation from hyperinflationary levels and eliminate the fiscal deficit. Those are real achievements that deserve objective recognition. No one in their right mind can defend the model of unfunded spending that led to inflation of 211% per year in 2023.

But an airplane doesn't fly with a single engine. Macroeconomic stability is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. The other engine – domestic consumption, the domestic market, aggregate demand – is off. And as long as it remains off, factories will continue to operate at 54%, shops will continue to close, young people will continue to emigrate and record harvests will continue to be good news for export ports... and neutral or negative news for the ordinary citizen who does not perceive any direct benefit.

The challenge for the government – of any Argentine government at this stage – is to demonstrate that fiscal discipline is compatible with inclusive growth. That the surplus can coexist with decent retirements. That attracting foreign investment does not require trampling on the local businessman. That low inflation can go hand in hand with salaries that recover purchasing power.

That demonstration has not yet occurred. The countryside produces like never before, reserves are growing, the country risk has dropped, and even so the Bell Ville baker sells fewer croissants than in 2022. That distance between macro indicators and micro reality is the real pending diagnosis. And the citizen – who is, in the final analysis, the recipient of all economic policy – has been waiting long enough for someone to solve it.

❝ An economy that grows for the indicators but not for the people has not finished growing. ❞
— Editorial reflection

Argentine Economy 2026 · Fiscal surplus · SMEs · Retirements · Domestic consumption · installed capacity · RIGI · informal sector · Milei economy · Economic reactivation · record harvest · purchasing power · inflation Argentina · GDP growth

TRAGEDY IN CHASCOMÚS: Kevin Martínez, 15 years old, died after being run over and receiving a brutal beating from a neighbor who falsely accused him of robbery

The teenager was savagely assaulted by Leonardo Marcelino while lying wounded on a stretcher, under the passive gaze of police and health personnel. The aggressor is a fugitive and has a previous conviction for aggravated sexual abuse. The case, labeled as culpable homicide, could be reclassified. Chascomús demands justice.

📅 Tuesday, May 19, 2026 ⏱️ Reading Time: 6 minutes 📌 Chascomús, Buenos Aires, Argentina ✍️ Research Writing

📌 THE EVENT: A TRAGEDY SEQUENCE IN TWO ACTS

The Buenos Aires city of Chascomús was dismayed after a succession of events that ended the life of Kevin Martínez, a 15-year-old teenager with no criminal record. The day began with a traffic accident and escalated to become, according to his family and the lawyer who represents them, a homicide committed in full view of police and health personnel.

On Tuesday, May 13, Kevin was traveling as a passenger on a Honda XR 150 motorcycle driven by S.M., another 17-year-old boy, when both were hit on the corner of Jacarandá and Julián Quintana streets by a Ford Ka driven by María Antonella Saint Jean, a 25-year-old woman. The impact was violent and left the two minors seriously injured on the pavement.

The SAME personnel arrived at the scene and prioritized the care of S.M., whose condition was critical: he lost a leg due to his injuries. Kevin, on the other hand, remained immobilized on a stretcher on the public road, conscious, with a broken leg and visibly scared, waiting to be transferred.

🚨 THE ATTACK: BLOWS TO THE HEAD BEFORE THE EYES OF THE POLICE

It was at that moment of extreme vulnerability that the episode that has shaken all of Argentina occurred. Leonardo Marcelino, a merchant who lived a few meters from the corner of the accident, approached the injured teenager and began a brutal aggression. According to the case and can be seen in the images obtained by witnesses, the man repeatedly hit Kevin on the head with his fists, grabbed him by the neck and put a knee on his body.

It all happened while the minor was asking for help. In the videos that circulate, Kevin's voice is clearly heard begging for "help" and asking to be released, while some neighbors reproached the aggressor for his attitude. Police officers, municipal personnel and health workers were at the scene. However, no one intervened in time to stop the beating.

The reason alleged by Marcelino, according to hypotheses that circulated among neighbors and were picked up by media such as C5N, is that he accused the teenager of having stolen the motorcycle on which he was riding. However, Kevin's own family and the judicial investigation agree on a critical point: so far there is no element in the file that links the teenager to that robbery.

After the blows, Kevin was completely unconscious. It was then that he was finally put in the ambulance. The aggressor slowly withdrew before the eyes of those present and escaped from the scene. Since that moment, Leonardo Marcelino has remained a fugitive from justice and is intensely sought by the Buenos Aires police.

🔬 THE AUTOPSY AND THE KEY QUESTION: WHAT KILLED KEVIN?

Kevin Martínez was transferred to the Franchín Sanatorium, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Almagro, where he agonized for two days. He died on Thursday, May 15. The preliminary autopsy established "polytrauma" and "internal bleeding" as the cause of death. Forensic sources consulted by Infobae pointed out that, so far, these injuries are compatible with the crash into the car.

However, the family and their lawyer refute that conclusion. The lawyer categorically stated that "there is no doubt that the cause of death is the blows" and that the scientific expertise in progress will be decisive. According to his words, the traffic accident "is very far from causing death" to the teenager.

A version that circulated on social networks and was picked up by C5N journalists indicates that Kevin would have suffered a collapse of the skull as a result of the blows. This hypothesis, if confirmed by an expert, would radically transform the cover of the case and the criminal responsibilities involved.

🚧 THE AGGRESSOR: A FUGITIVE AND WITH A PREVIOUS CONVICTION FOR SEXUAL ABUSE

One of the most disturbing facts of the case is the judicial history of Leonardo Marcelino. The family's lawyer revealed to the press that Marcelino was recently sentenced by the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) No. 1 of Dolores to a sentence of between 12 and 15 years in prison for aggravated sexual abuse.

Despite this, Marcelino was free at the time of the event and, after committing the attack, he managed to escape. At the close of this edition, the Buenos Aires police are looking for him intensely. He is the only person that the Justice Department directly links to the beating, but he has not yet registered a formal charge for Kevin's death.

⚠️ THE MOST SERIOUS COMPLAINT: THE POLICE LOOKED ON WITHOUT INTERVENING

As shocking as the aggression itself is the conduct of the police officers present. The videos show that the agents observed how Marcelino beat the injured teenager without intervening with the speed that the case demanded. Kevin's father, Marcos, told the press: "I saw the video a thousand times and I can't find an explanation. The pain is so great that I don't understand why the justice system didn't act while there."

The mother, Romina, added: "There were officers and enough people to hold him and keep him from approaching." The family's lawyer announced that he will request that the "criminal responsibility" of the police officers and ambulance personnel who witnessed the attack be investigated. The Municipality of Chascomús acknowledged in a statement that "the actions of police personnel must be evaluated."

According to the lawyer, "there was a network of complicity regarding the definitive cause of death" and said that "if they had acted as they should, this would not have happened." He also questioned that Kevin had been handcuffed on the stretcher despite being seriously injured, describing such treatment as humiliating and unjustified.

💚 THE FAMILY: "HE WAS AN EXCELLENT AND VERY CHEERFUL BOY"

Those who knew Kevin Martínez paint the portrait of a normal, lovable teenager without conflicts with the law. His grandmother, in dialogue with TN, described him as "a very companion" and "an excellent boy." His mother, Romina, declared that "he was beautiful, cheerful; all the noise around him was for joy" and added: "There are no words. I have no consolation. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that we have to fight for justice."

Judicial sources consulted by Infobae confirmed that Kevin Martínez did not have any criminal record. The only connection with the stolen vehicle was circumstantial: he was traveling as a passenger on a motorcycle that had an active kidnapping order since May 9. It is unknown if the teenager knew that the motorcycle was stolen.

✊ CHASCOMÚS IN THE STREET: MARCH THIS MONDAY FOR JUSTICE

This Monday, May 18, at 4 p.m., family, friends, neighbors and citizens from all over the country who followed the case call for a peaceful march in Chascomús. The mobilization will depart from Misiones 81, the home of the Martínez family, and will go to the local police station.

⚖️ THE STATUS OF THE CASE: QUESTIONS THAT JUSTICE MUST ANSWER

The judicial investigation was in charge of prosecutor Daniela María Bertoletti Tramuja, head of UFID No. 9 of Chascomús, who delegated police tasks to the local Departmental Subdelegation of Investigations. The only one formally charged so far is the driver of the Ford Ka, María Antonella Saint Jean, whose case is labeled as culpable homicide. He remained at the scene after the accident.

Leonardo Marcelino, the aggressor who escaped, has not yet been arrested or formally charged at the time of going to press, although the prosecutor's office is analyzing multiple accusations. The final results of the autopsy and the scientific expertise will be key to determining whether the cover escalates to intentional homicide and how many people – including police and health personnel – should be criminally liable.

The other teenager who was traveling on the motorcycle, S.M., 17, is still hospitalized in serious condition and had a leg amputated. Unlike Kevin, he does have a record for robbery.

Kevin Martínez Chascomús • Chascomús adolescent beating • Leonardo Marcelino fugitive • justice Kevin Martínez • Chascomús motorcycle accident • Buenos Aires manslaughter • Chascomús 18 de Mayo march • young man run over Buenos Aires • UFID Chascomús • prosecutor Bertoletti Tramuja • police violence Buenos Aires

📰 Note prepared with information from Infobae, Minuto Uno, Ámbito , Crónica, La Noticia 1 and Diario Nuevo Día • Update: 18/05/2026

👩 Victim	Melín Agustina Sartori, 24 years old
📅 Vaccination	July 15, 2021 — Orfeo Superdomo, Córdoba
💉 Vaccine applied	Sputnik V (first dose — adenoviral vector)
🏥 Diagnosis	Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (VITT)
☠️ Death	July 29, 2021 (14 days post-vaccination)
⚖️ Tribunal	Chamber A — Federal Court of Appeals of Córdoba
👨 ⚖️ Signatory judges	Liliana Navarro, Graciela Montesi, Eduardo Ávalos
💰 Indemnification	$95 million approx. (240 minimum retirement benefits)
📜 Applied law	Law 27,573 — COVID-19 Reparation Fund
⏱️ Deadline to the State	30 days to complete the administrative procedure

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