US Justice contacted a financier linked to the AFA money trail and the purchase of the Perugia club

The investigation into the business dealings of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) is advancing in the United States. The prosecutors in charge of the inquiry contacted one of the financiers who knows the most about how the money trail used by the entity unfolded over the last few years and what became of tens of millions of dollars with ramifications on at least two continents, sources in two countries familiar with what happened confirmed to LA NACION. The summons was received by one of the founding partners of the firm Adcap Asset Management, Juan Martín Molinari, who must provide sensitive documentation before a grand jury in Miami. Contacted by LA NACION, Molinari's attorney in the United States, Daniel Fridman, stated that it is "a document request directed at a US company he owns." "It seeks records related to third parties, including transfers that the company received from one of them. It is not directed at Mr. Molinari nor does it mention him," he added. The investigation by prosecutors Michael Berger, from Miami, and Patrick Gushue and Christopher Ting, from Washington DC, focuses on the operations that AFA's collection agent, TourProdEnter LLC, owned by Argentine theater producer Javier Faroni and his wife, Erica Gillette, carried out with a base in the United States. As an "intermediary," it received and administered nearly US$300 million from AFA sponsors and backers since December 2021, according to documentation revealed by LA NACION. Tapia, Toviggino and Faroni are the protagonists of the scheme. The prosecutors seek to determine whether the banking operations that Faroni and Gillette carried out through TourProdEnter LLC could constitute crimes, including possible money laundering or alleged bank or financial fraud. The investigators also seek to establish what knowledge and possible involvement the president of the AFA, Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia, and the treasurer, Pablo Toviggino, may have had in those operations. The scheme began to be woven years ago, when TourProdEnter LLC turned to Adcap to move at least US$109 million destined for the British Virgin Islands and Uruguay, and to execute "contado con liqui" transactions that channeled funds to Argentina during the validity of the foreign exchange controls, legally. From the financial firm they clarified that "they did not receive from the US justice system or any other jurisdiction any request for information, nor from the entities that regulate their activity and maintain constant oversight of their operations." The information request, delivered to an address in New York about ten days ago, would be aimed at one of Molinari's companies, Beagle Capital Management LLC, which was involved in the purchase of the Italian football club Perugia. LA NACION revealed in January that at least US$6.2 million from AFA revenues were used for that transaction. Javier Faroni will be one of the new owners of the Perugia club in ItalyX Of that total, Javier Faroni transferred US$5.7 million to a firm of his called Sports Next Gen Ltd, which was part of the business group that acquired the club in 2024. He did so through 25 transfers to two accounts of Sports NextGen Ltd at the banks Revolut, in the United Kingdom, and Afrasia Bank Ltd., in Mauritius, about a thousand kilometers west of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean. To that flow of money was added another half million dollars that TourProdEnter LLC transferred to Beagle Capital Management LLC, on October 16 and 27, 2023, through two wire transfers of US$250,000 each. The only visible face at Beagle Capital is Molinari. The purchase of Perugia began to take formal shape five months later, in March 2024. In his office, Molinari said in front of two Italian intermediaries: "I have the buyer." And two weeks later, in the same place, Faroni appeared. "Until that moment we did not know who Faroni was. Molinari told us he was a man of Tapia's, and that was why he had won the contract with (the ticketing company) Deportick," revealed the Italian businessman Simone Chiarella, one of the protagonists of the scheme, to LA NACION, last April. Faroni and his wife in meetings prior to the purchase of Perugia. courtesy The transaction was completed on September 7, 2024, at the Biavati notary office, in the center of the city of Perugia. Afterwards, Faroni toured the club's facilities, posed with the jersey bearing his name, and took it upon himself to give the news to the president of the AFA. "He called Tapia right there to let him know that everything had gone well," Chiarella recalled. But that was not all. The next day, Faroni said he wanted to meet with the then president of the Italian Football Federation, Gabriele Gravina. The arrangements were handled by a FIFA agent, Pierpaolo Triulzi, and the seller of Perugia, Massimiliano Santopadre. Contacted by LA NACION, Molinari chose to respond through his attorney. "Receiving such a request does not, by itself, mean that the company or its owner are accused of anything. The company is responding as it should. This is a confidential proceeding, and therefore we will not comment on its contents or refer to third parties," Fridman replied. "Subjects of interest" In January, when LA NACION asked Adcap about Molinari's conduct—one of its founding partners and a manager—the financial firm distanced itself emphatically. "Molinari's dealings with the firm Sports NextGen are absolutely unrelated to Adcap, which had no knowledge whatsoever until now about the purchase of a football club, and Adcap has not had and does not have participation in any company or business with Faroni. Molinari's participation in that transaction was in a personal capacity, as a director, a position from which he has already resigned, and today [Monday, January 5 of this year] Molinari will submit a request for an indefinite leave of absence from Adcap, which will be communicated to the CNV," they stated, referring to the National Securities Commission. The situation did not change. "A process to buy back his share package is currently underway. Molinari carries out independent business activities outside the brokerage firm," said sources at the financial firm. Now, the "subpoena" received by one of Molinari's US companies adds to the summonses issued at the end of July by the Department of Justice with the order to appear before the Court of the Southern District of Florida, at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse building. They were received by several witnesses or participants in the operation under suspicion, such as the then Commercial and Marketing Director of the AFA, Leandro Petersen, as LA NACION reconstructed. Leandro Petersen announced his departure from the AFA after nine yearsX.com A "subpoena" is a written order issued by a court or other competent authority in the United States that obliges the person summoned to cooperate with a legal proceeding, either by appearing to testify as a witness on a specific date and place or by delivering documents, records, or other objects that may serve as evidence. The central function of that order is to guarantee the obtaining of essential evidence and witnesses, and noncompliance can carry contempt sanctions, including detention. Another "subject of interest" who would have been summoned to appear in Miami, as LA NACION reconstructed, is Juan Pablo Beacon, who for years was one of Toviggino's main collaborators within the AFA. Prosecutors and FBI agents contacted him to understand from the inside how the entity's decision-making structure and financial circuits worked. In parallel with those summonses, prosecutors and FBI agents also began contacting non-Argentine companies that signed million-dollar contracts with the AFA but wired money to accounts of TourProdEnter LLC in banks in the United States, such as Citibank, Bank of America, Synovus Bank, JP Morgan, and PNC Bank. The money trail that passed through the United States then included companies incorporated in Miami that exist only on paper and that received funds from TourProdEnter LLC and other "intermediary" companies. And it ended with the sending of part of those funds to Argentina through "cuevas" of the Buenos Aires financial district, which supplied the "ends" and delivered the money in cash, in bags. The investigation began in September 2025. Since then, the prosecutors and FBI agents have held multiple meetings with the businessman Guillermo Tofoni. The last one would have taken place in June of this year, in Miami, during the World Cup. For three hours, the investigators requested data to determine whether certain operations in the United States constitute money laundering or bank fraud. AFAMiami