Argentina's Adorni declares $513,000 in Bitcoin to explain his wealth amid an enrichment case

Argentina's Cabinet Chief, Manuel Adorni, filed a series of rectified sworn declarations on Wednesday night before the Anti-Corruption Office and the Revenue and Customs Control Agency (ARCA) that substantially modify his assets and those of his wife, Bettina Angeletti. The main new element is the inclusion of about $513,000 attributed to Bitcoin investments, in a filing that comes as he faces a judicial investigation for alleged illicit enrichment.

The cases —for alleged illicit enrichment and negotiations incompatible with public office— are being handled at the Comodoro Py federal courts by judge Ariel Lijo and prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, and will continue despite the amended filing. The documentation, anticipated by President Javier Milei and delayed for more than a month, reconstructs the family's economic evolution since 2020. Hours earlier, Adorni had joined a simplified tax-regularization regime.

According to the reconstruction presented by the Cabinet Office, the cryptocurrency investments were made between 2013 and 2018 through eight virtual wallets. The initial capital was said to be around $200,000 and, with the rise in prices, would have grown into the $513,000 now being declared; the operations, that account holds, can be verified through the wallets' access keys. In a television interview, Adorni admitted that he and his wife had kept undeclared savings — we saved off the books, like all Argentines, he said— and stated that he had even considered resigning. His circle maintains that all of the couple's assets predate his entry into public office.