Argentina to extradite to US a suspected drug trafficker with ties to President Milei's ally

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The government of Argentina's President Javier Milei said on Tuesday that it would extradite an Argentine businessman to face drug trafficking and money laundering charges in the United States, the latest development in a politically explosive case that has tainted an ally of the libertarian president.

Milei’s office said that he had instructed the Foreign Ministry and other officials “to immediately take the administrative and diplomatic steps necessary" to comply with a Supreme Court decision issued earlier Tuesday approving the extradition of the businessman, Fred Machado.

Machado landed in Argentine custody in 2021, months after he fled a raft of charges filed against him in Texas, including drug trafficking, money laundering and wire fraud.

The count of conspiracy to traffic narcotics centered on allegations that Machado and his associates illegally registered planes under shell companies, exported the aircraft to criminal organizations in Latin America and used the jets to fly multi-ton shipments of cocaine into the U.S.

Machado denies the charges.

His case has dragged on for years but it splashed across national headlines last week when documents surfaced from the Eastern District of Texas showing that a key member of Milei’s Libertad Avanza party, José Luis Espert, received a $200,000 payment in his Bank of America account from Machado in 2020.

Espert, one of Milei’s top candidates for upcoming Oct. 26 midterm elections, admitted accepting the money in a social media video last Thursday, claiming it was for consulting work to help a mining company linked to Machado.

He denied knowledge of any illicit activities but ultimately withdrew his candidacy for Milei’s libertarian party in Buenos Aires Province.

“I have nothing to hide and I will prove my innocence before the courts,” Espert said on Sunday in announcing his resignation, acknowledging that he took over a dozen trips on Machado’s planes. “Time will show that all of this was a big lie to taint this electoral process.”

The revelations about Espert piled pressure on the president, who has suffered a series of recent political setbacks including a landslide loss in a provincial vote, a separate bribery scandal engulfing his powerful sister and several votes in Congress that overturned presidential vetoes and boosted social spending that threatens his hard-won fiscal balance.

Since taking office in late 2023, Milei has imposed a sweeping austerity program that has succeeded in eliminating Argentina's chronic fiscal deficit for the first time in years but has yet to deliver an economic revival that Milei promised would follow the pain.

The stakes are high ahead of midterm elections, in which Milei seeks to expand his tiny congressional minority in order to implement his overhaul of Argentina’s long-troubled economy and reassure investors after his party's crushing defeat in the Buenos Aires provincial election triggered a run on the peso and a sharp bond sell-off.

His government is scrambling to contain the turmoil with help from ally U.S. President Donald Trump. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged financial support but was short on specifics.

Milei, who is set to visit Trump at the White House on Oct. 14, told local media last week that he was “working on the details.”