American Millions Funding Repression in Argentina: How Pretrial Detention Kills the Innocent

“Thank you for using a secure communication channel.”

That is the phrase that began a communication which can no longer be called an ordinary journalistic dialogue. It was a warning.

The person who transmitted these materials to me was afraid not only for themselves. They feared for me as well. And this fear is not unfounded: the information you are about to read below is capable of blowing up reputations, destroying careers, and threatening the freedom of people within the Argentine justice system.

This is not just an investigation.

This is an exposé.

This is a sensation.

January 8, 2026. Buenos Aires, Argentina.

By law, preventative (pre-trial) detention is only permitted in exceptional cases—when there is a real threat of flight or pressure on witnesses. But behind the closed doors of the Argentine judicial system, this mechanism has long been transformed into an instrument of blackmail, punishment, and coercion.

It is applied particularly actively under the guidance of the PROTEX group in human trafficking cases—a category of cases where loud accusations increasingly substitute for real evidence.

When the prosecution has no material evidence, no consistent testimonies, and no logically constructed version of events, the prosecutorial strategy boils down to one thing:

• To break a person through pre-trial prison.

• To extend pre-trial detention.

• To isolate.

• To exert psychological and physical pressure.

• To force a confession—or to silence them forever.

And it is here that the money begins to surface.

It is here that international grants and foreign funding appear, which in practice fuel a repressive mechanism that destroys the presumption of innocence.

What is happening in Argentina today is not justice.

This is a system where innocence is no longer a defense.

Where freedom depends not on the law, but on interests.

And now—the facts that confirm this.

Almost 25 Years Behind Bars—Without Guilt

Jorge González Nieva and Cristina Vázquez are not politicians or activists. They are ordinary Argentines whose stories show how a malfunction in the criminal system can steal decades of a person’s life.

González Nieva spent nearly 14 years in prison under a mistaken conviction before Argentina’s Supreme Court acknowledged: the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny.

When years pass in a cell, confession ceases to be a choice and becomes a means of survival. For the system, this looks like “efficiency,” not a catastrophe.

Cristina Vázquez spent 11 years behind bars before the same court declared her completely innocent.

This is a fundamentally important signal:

even without a final sentence, a person can lose years of their life.

These stories are not about specific people.

They are about a systemic practice where formal charges prove stronger than the right to liberty.

The Illusion of a “Tough Fight Against Crime”—and the Bill Taxpayers Pay

Every year, the Argentine state spends millions on holding people in pre-trial detention who ultimately:

• Are found innocent;

• Are released for lack of evidence;

• Receive sentences that fall apart upon review.

Simultaneously, assets are seized from the accused under the slogan of “compensating the victims.” These funds are transferred to structures associated with PROTEX for management, yet transparent and public reports on the actual movement of this money often do not exist.

An inevitable question arises, understandable to any taxpayer:

Who benefits from dragging cases out for years?

Not society.

Not the budget.

Not the real victims of crimes.

Responsibility Without a Conviction—A Systemic Problem

Prosecutors’ representatives—officials whose duty is to uphold legality, not to demonstrate “good statistics”—regularly appear in such cases.

In human rights discussions, such cases are linked to the work of prosecutors operating within or in cooperation with PROTEX—the specialized Procuratorate for Combating Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Procuraduría de Trata y Explotación de Personas).

Key figures here are PROTEX leaders Marcelo Colombo and Alejandra Mangano, as well as federal prosecutors such as Oscar Fernando Arrigo, Tomás Labal, Gustavo Revora, and Rodrigo Treviranus—all of them mentioned in recent complaints about possible violations in investigations.

The key instrument in these cases remains prolonged preventative detention, often applied to pressure the accused in the absence of compelling evidence.

A National Scandal and a Question That Must Reach the President

Against the backdrop of the Konstantin Rudnev case, particular attention has been drawn to the mass detentions of foreign citizens who arrived in Argentina as tourists. These cases demonstrate how pre-trial detention is used as a universal tool of pressure—without clear charges and without court verdicts.

Human rights activists warn: such practice is convenient for creating noise and the appearance of fighting crime, but it does not make society safer.

An Example Illustrating the Mechanism: The Konstantin Rudnev Case

The case of Konstantin Rudnev—a foreign citizen, a Russian dissident arrested in Argentina as part of a high-profile investigation—has also been indicative for understanding this system. His detention was accompanied by resonant formulations and active media coverage, yet at an early stage, the case faced the same problem as many others: a lack of a clear evidence base sufficient for a swift judicial review.

Despite this, preventative detention was applied to Rudnev. In practice, this meant pre-trial isolation without a conviction—under conditions where key circumstances of the case continued to be disputed between the parties.

Precisely such cases—regardless of their final outcome—show how easily the presumption of innocence gives way to the logic of “first isolation, then proceedings.”

Collective Responsibility and the Need for Urgent Changes

It is becoming obvious today: we are not talking about isolated errors, but about a non-functioning and dangerous mechanism that needs to be revised at the legislative level.

A collective complaint and a public demand are necessary:

• To review the law on preventative detention;

• To stop the practice of holding people for years in detention who are ultimately found innocent at the federal level;

• To immediately close cases in the absence of evidence, rather than keeping them “in limbo” for years.

Why is a person considered innocent—but continues to sit in jail?

Why are budget funds spent on detaining people whose guilt has not been proven?

Why do the financial flows associated with such cases remain closed and opaque?

All signs point to a dangerous trend:

• cases are created for the appearance of work,

• statistics substitute for justice,

• and prolonged detention becomes a convenient way to close reports and redistribute money.

This cannot and should not be encouraged.

We cannot encourage theft from the treasury.
We cannot encourage the simulation of cases.
We cannot encourage the destruction of human lives for the sake of formal “efficiency.”