The China threat is real. After our initial report that outlined how President Javier Milei's Argentina and the People's Republic of China (PRC) appeared to be locked into a 25-year dredging agreement that if signed off on, would completely cut out an American consortium that has also been vying for the project.
From the looks of it, Argentina may be trying to "Make China Great Again" by blocking and tackling against American interests.
The tie between the CCP and Milei's Argentina appears unmistakable, even as President Milei contends that he is pro-America.
New intelligence tying the Milei government with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could prove to be significantly problematic for Milei, considering that the Argentinian government has denied direct contact or having any ties to the CCP, and that he could face a reelection challenge next year.
The intelligence, which The Floridian received from a trusted source within the federal government, shows that U.S. intelligence has been keeping tabs on the federal government between September 1 and the first week of May, and have uncovered that CCP operatives have "traveled" between the Chinese embassy in Buenos Aires and Milei's National Ports and Navigation Agency (ANPYN).
According to one of the graphs from the dossier received regarding the planned tender, there were no fewer than 255 points of contact, or pings on devices, that travelled between the Chinese embassy and the Port authority.
In this image, a handful of the devices that were tracked using sophisticated surveillance intelligence, were made from a Chinese-based technology company out of Beijing.
There is more...
Serious questions can be asked why such repeated interactions take place notwithstanding denials of China links by the Argentines. Research also discovered Servimagnus executives openly promoting the use of Chinese technologies in Argentina as well as a dual Argentine-China national with direct links to Chinese State Owned Enterprises hidden in a foreign subsidiary. The same research discovered a repeated surveillance of the river by PRC embassy people traveling back and forth the entire length of the river.
Research also seems to suspect repeated interactions between ANPyN and the Servimagnus consortium after the issue of the tender, which seems to violate the basic rules of any tender that participants are forbidden from entering into contact with the tender authority during the process. Servimagnus is a sister company of Loginter, a company known for its partnerships with Chinese companies such as Huawei (sanctioned by the USA), Cosco and providing logistics services for Chinese mining companies operating in Argentina.
Milei's Exposure to China
La Nacion reported of the leaked information that Milei's most trusted advisor, Santiago Caputo, flew to the U.S. to directly speak to American lawmakers and other individuals from other government agencies.
The reporting is accurate, but how did they know about the abrupt trip to the U.S. The details of the meetings, and who Caputo had the meetings were kept underwraps.
Since it's ok to leak information about this meeting, let's add that Caputo appeared very concerned about the intelligence briefing he received and over the concerns that elected officials conveyed to him.
Caputo also made it very clear to the interested parties that he met with that he and President Milei were very pro-American and opposed to the CCP, and the potential for China to have a strong position regarding the dredging project in question.
If Caputo and Milei are so pro-Trump and pro-America, why is their government allegedly meeting with CCP operatives or officials?
We have confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has now taken an interest in the dredging tender.
The Fix is in
On Friday, the Argentine Office of Administrative Investigations (PIA) announced and investigations against several ANPyN officials, possibly Director Inaki Arreseyor, for serious and clear irregularities in the drafting of the bidding documents raising concerns about a possible bias in the tender procedure and which might lead to administrative or criminal prosecutions.
One of the irregularities seems to related to the UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) expert documents based on which the tender was build. The Flordian reached out to Mr. Arreseyor last week with a set of questions, one of which is whether he is willing to undergo an independent US led audit into the tender process on a waterway that is so critical to US-Argentina relations. Despite repeated attempts, he refused to answer any of our questions. The Floridian tried again this weekend to reach him, but so far did not receive any answer.
The Floridian did further research and found, amongst other things, the a number irregularities in the evaluation of the bids which seem to clearly favour cumbent contractor to the detriment of the US-led consortium. Just a few examples:
- There are reported irregularities related to the UNCTAT expert document
- One of the members of the evaluation committee has previously certified parts of the bid of Jan De Nul-Servimagnus which constitutes and major conflict of interest
- Jan De Nul lacks the necessary experience in signalization on the Hidrovia which he used as reference in his bid as these works were in the past performed by its partner EMEPA, who confessed in 2022 to have paid bribes to extend the dredging concession. Still, Jan De Nul passed this technical evaluation without any issue
- Jan De Nul’s bid bond seems to have violated tender requirements, but again no actions was taken in the evaluation of envelope 1
The PIA investigation refers to new and substantial deficiencies in the evaluation process. Any participants to the tender who wants to legally object to the evaluation, is obliged to put us a USD 10,000,000 (!) complaint bond which will only be repaid as the sole discretion of ANPyN. Not once, but twice as every envelope requires such a bond, notwithstanding participants already having put up a USD 20,000,000 general bid bond. The refusal to play along with this money grabbing scheme are serious: any party who refuses to submit such complaint bond will see its objections rejected. In order to be heard, you need to pay ANPyN without any guarantee that your money will be returned. Industry insiders confirm that in their long careers dealing with major international tenders, they never faced such a dubious requirement. The PIA investigation is rightly looking into these restrictions on challenges to the bidding process.
Once can ask why ANPyN is willing to go to such lengths to want to assure the outcome of this tender. Is it to protect vested interests or is there more to it? Or a combination of both?
If there are no such China links as claimed by ANPyN and the Servimagnus consortium, why did so many mobile devices travel back and forth between their headquarters and the PRC Embassy? The number of such interactions are just staggering. What do they have to consult on? Is Servimagnus protecting Loginter’s Chinese interests for whom control and unrestricted access to the river is a critical source of information on river data, crop and mining production, import-export prices?
Will Milei look to 'Make Argentina Great Again' by embracing American capitalism, or will he trade in his conservative, pro-capitalist bona fides for a pair of red chopsticks?
