Letter from Buenos Aires - no 9.

It goes without question that Xiomara and I focus on UK interests here in Argentina - it is the very nature of our appointment, but occasionally we are invited to help the national internal security services by providing expertise, contacts, technology or manpower (which, incidentally, Xiomara corrects to read ‘person power’).

So it was on a request from Security Minister Patricia Bullrich with regard to a suspect named as David Nazareno Ávila, identified as an Islamist linked to the Islamic State Daesh group (ISIS), operating here in Argentina. He was arrested on Tuesday 14 January by the Specialized Prosecution Unit for Organized Crime (UFECO).

Ávila, formerly an Argentine army volunteer, is alleged to have had a long-term involvement in recruiting activities on behalf of ISIS using Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, and X. Telephone data from October last year suggested his involvement in an advanced bombing plan in ‘its last stage of entrustment’. UFECO put in place surveillance and wiretapping to reveal that Avila was working as a courier adjacent to a Jewish community company, giving him access to a variety of targets. In the end it seems that his direct confessions to an undercover agent secured his arrest.

Other news this week (not involving Xiomara or me) but of interest given our report in letter 5 concerning Milei’s sacking on 31 October 2024 of Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, is that her successor, Gerardo Wertehin, has been reorganising his department by recalling Martín García Moritán, Ambassador to Uruguay. We are not clear why this should be, unless in furtherance of Milei’s insistence to consolidate libertarian power throughout his administration. Moritán has had a long record of service from the same year that Roger filmed Octopussy, so maybe, unlike yours truly, he is ready to hang up his diplomatic bag.