Fernando Cerimedo was arrested Tuesday at the Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra while trying to board an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight to Buenos Aires. He carried a satchel full of money, according to the reconstruction by the police.
Hours beforehand, Cerimedo’s ex-partner, Bolivian lawyer and activist Nadia Beller, had been shot multiple times at a hotel doorway by two hitmen disguised as delivery men.
Prosecutors in Bolivia are investigating him for "masterminding" the attack while Beller – who says she is four months pregnant with his child – has testified from her hospital bed: "He wanted to kill me."
This is, until now, the darkest chapter in the career of a man who was once part of Javier Milei’s inner circle and today is under investigation in at least three countries.
Troll chief
Cerimedo was a key piece in Milei’s 2023 presidential campaign, and once admitted to having headed an army of "thousands" of trolls in the social networks. During one stage of the campaign, Milei himself delegated the scrutineering of votes to him, although afterwards he removed him.
Later on, Cerimedo entered the inner circle of the President, acting as a middleman for the interview with the United States journalist Tucker Carlson. In a 2023 interview with La Nación, he recognised without hesitation that he ran "negative campaigns" – i.e. "supplying real information that the rival candidate does not want made known."
In a dialogue with Noticias magazine in October, 2022, he summed up his ambition with a telltale phrase: "I want to be the [Grupo Clarin CEO Héctor] Magnetto of the right."
That profile was based on La Derecha Diario, a media outlet which he founded, remaining a shareholder until at least last March, with dedicated portals in Argentina, México, Estados Unidos, Israel, Uruguay and Ecuador. Posts from its social media accounts are frequently retweeted by Milei. The website is edited by Madero Media Group SRL, linked to Numen Publicida – the company of which Cerimedo is CEO.
Beyond Argentina
Cerimedo’s profile amply surpasses Argentina. He worked for former president Mauricio Macri in his 2019 re-election bid (according to his account, via "Patricia Bullrich, who introduced me to PRO"), helped to coordinate the presidential campaign for Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2022 and more recently has been a "personal advisor" to current Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, an ally of Milei.
In Brazil his name was included in the investigation into the coup attempt following the 2022 elections which eventually cost Bolsonaro a 27-year prison sentence – a Supremo Tribunal Federal justice identified Cerimedo as part of the "core of the disinformation and attacks on the electoral system" for having broadcast denunciations of fraud about the electronic ballot-boxes, which were rejected by the Brazilian electoral courts. "This case is political and ideological persecution," Cerimedo then said in self-defence.
In Bolivia, his recent role as advisor to Paz was confirmed in public by Vice-President Edman Lara, who has clashed with the president since the run-off.
"Mr Fernando Cerimedo must submit to a trial without any privileges, even though he is the main advisor of Rodrigo Paz," demanded Lara at a press conference this week, claiming that "no appeal weighs more than the law."
Relations with Milei
Cerimedo’s relationship with the Casa Rosada began to break down in 2025. The first public short circuit came with the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency scandal when he questioned the government on social media.
But the real break came with the scandal over the leaked voice note messages made by Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of ANDIS (Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad) national disability agency, exposing alleged graft in the body’s purchases of medicine.
Spagnuolo privately accused Cerimedo of having taped him without his consent, passing on the material to media impresario Franco Bindi for broadcast. Cerimedo denied this, although recognises that he had spoken with him over what was going on in ANDIS.
The case also took a familiar twist too – Cerimedo’s ex-wife Natalia Basil had been an ANDIS director under Spagnuolo’s orders, who resigned in November 2024, just a few months before the scandal erupted.
Last September Cerimedo testified in court that Spagnuolo had assured him that he had told President Milei about the presumed graft and that the head of state "had got annoyed" and told him that he had already informed Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello.
Now from her hospital bed in Bolivia, Beller went one step further. In a reconstruction, she said that Cerimedo had confided to her the motives for the leak: "Fernando told me that Milei’s sister was involved in corruption" and that she herself had leaked the voice messages "so that there be no impunity in this case."
According to her narrative, Cerimedo distanced himself from Milei because the presidential entourage was "too rotten," while his closest link in the Argentine government was and remains Patricia Bullrich, with whom he co-ordinated "questions of security."
Irregularities
Beyond politics, Cerimedo’s business empire grew parallel to his proximity to power – although with a history of irregularities: a fraud conviction in 2016 for having sold the same Mar del Plata flat to two different people, costing him a suspended 30-month prison sentence; his older businesses accumulated debts of 80 million pesos and bouncing cheques of over 300 million with the banking system, according to the Central Bank; a parallel registration of new companies linked to areas alien to the media like information technology, real-estate rental for events and, together with partners of his ex-wife Natalia Basil, the energy sector.
The Bolivian chapter completes a picture featuring the most serious accusations. According to what Beller told the courts and the press, Cerimedo "received dirty money from the Paz government and laundered it in Argentina," handling "boxes full of banknotes." There was even an “elite squad" of the Bolivian police operating under his orders near the hotel where she was attacked, alleges his former partner.
"Bolivia is not governed by Rodrigo Paz but by Fernando Cerimedo. They are going to cover him absolutely," denounced the lawyer, singling him out as one of the fixers behind the contacts with "drug-traffickers."
For now these are the accusations of one of the sides involved in this case – it is the Bolivian courts who must determine in the next few weeks whether Cerimedo will end up formally indicted for the attack leaving his pregnant ex-partner in hospital with three bullets in her body.
