Lijo acts on the prosecutors' request
Federal judge Ariel Lijo signed an order summoning the owners and directors of the drug wholesaler Suizo Argentina to appear for questioning in the corruption investigation at the National Disability Agency (ANDIS), according to court reporting. The move followed a request from prosecutors Franco Picardi and Sergio Rodríguez. The round of hearings is scheduled to begin on October 29.[S1][S2]
Those called include the firm's president, Jonathan Kovalivker, and its vice president, Emmanuel Kovalivker. Four other executives must also testify: purchasing director Diego Viner, corporate affairs director Sebastián Nuner Uner, Gonzalo Zarbo, who heads the special treatments division, and Fernando Domínguez, coordinator of that same area.[S1][S2]
What prosecutors allege about the agency
In the prosecutors' account, Suizo Argentina took over ANDIS between May 2024 and August 2025. The firm, they argue, made institutional decisions, controlled purchases of high-cost medicines and ran a cartel arrangement involving 14 other companies identified so far. That position, the prosecution says, let it sell medicines at higher prices with overcharges. It was the private company that received the most money from the agency: 137,118,708,357 pesos over 15 months.[S1]
The prosecutors' filing, which runs more than 300 pages, states that the wholesaler controlled the high-cost medicine purchasing circuit of the federal Incluir Salud program. They attribute this to unlawful arrangements between company executives and senior agency officials. According to the document, the firm received advance information from public officials, managed the agency's purchases, set sale prices for its own medicines and those of other wholesalers to decide who would win price tenders, and told officials which companies to pay and which to delay.[S1][S2]
Prosecutor Franco Picardi also said the wholesaler kept a detailed record of the amounts and percentages ANDIS assigned to each company, tender after tender. The filing states that Suizo Argentina was always at the top as the winner during Diego Spagnuolo's tenure and especially after the arrival of Daniel María Garbellini, described as a close associate of Pablo Atchabahian. The prosecution said the investigation established that Atchabahian was a lobbyist and operative for the firm, regarded by its executives as a loyal soldier.[S1]
Overcharges and intermediary firms
The prosecutors point to purchase orders awarded to the wholesaler worth 137,118,708,357 pesos, close to 30 percent of ANDIS's total spending in the period under investigation. They say those figures were shaped by overcharges and inflated prices that harmed the national treasury and, above all, poor people with disabilities and serious chronic illnesses.[S1]
As a test case, the filing describes July 2024, when the head of Suizo Argentina's special treatments division told his team a multiple sclerosis medicine had been acquired at 92,000 pesos per unit. He then instructed them to sell it at whatever price they wanted, according to the prosecution's account of the message. ANDIS ultimately paid between 3,870,392 and 4,063,912 pesos per unit, roughly 42 times the acquisition cost, an increase of about 4,106.95 percent. The filing adds that ANDIS had bought the same medicine from another wholesaler at 281,400 pesos in May 2024.[S1]
The prosecution also says Suizo Argentina used the wholesaler Genesis S.A. as a front company to sell to ANDIS, raising medicine prices by more than 200 percent. Genesis, linked to Atchabahian, went from having almost no activity in 2023 to ranking among the ten firms receiving the most state payments in 2024 and 2025, with awards totaling 34,066,729,176 pesos between May 2024 and August 2025.[S1]
Files held by Suizo Argentina contained information on ANDIS purchases and on the conduct of the firm and other wholesalers before tenders closed, according to the prosecution. The filing describes a double arrangement: one with officials who guaranteed information and control over contracting, and another with wholesalers that had to accept the distribution of business organized by Suizo Argentina. The investigation also reaches former ANDIS head Diego Spagnuolo and other former officials and businesspeople, as the court seeks to establish whether an illicit association existed around the agency's large contracts.[S1][S2]
