Federal prosecutors from the US Department of Justice and agents of the FBI have started gathering sworn testimony in a preliminary investigation into the financial operations of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) on American soil. The inquiry, led by prosecutors Patrick Gushue, Christopher Ting and Michael Berger, is focused on whether the entity chaired by Claudio Tapia committed offences under US jurisdiction, including money laundering and bank fraud, as it moved hundreds of millions of dollars through the American financial system. One of the first witnesses to be interviewed, according to Argentine media, was businessman Guillermo Tofoni, who participated in a three-hour virtual meeting with prosecutors and FBI agents based in Washington DC and Miami. No formal charges have been filed, and the Department of Justice has not issued a public statement on the matter.

Viewed from Buenos Aires, the probe centres on the role of TourProdEnter LLC, a company linked to theatre producer Javier Faroni that acted as the AFA’s commercial agent for international contracts. Argentine press accounts indicate that investigators are reconstructing the flow of at least $260 million in AFA revenues administered through accounts at five US banks, including Citibank, Bank of America and JP Morgan. While a portion of those funds can be traced to identifiable operational expenses, reporting from La Nación suggests that some $57 million was distributed to entities and individuals with no clear economic justification. Among the recipients, the reports name companies connected to AFA treasurer Pablo Toviggino and his family, as well as individuals who, according to official records, were receiving social welfare payments.

The AFA, through its North American representative Tomás Regalado, has defended the principle of the presumption of innocence, stating at a Miami forum that the opening of an investigation does not imply criminal liability. The Argentine government’s position is more layered: the country’s security ministry, then led by Patricia Bullrich, alerted US officials to suspicious operations linked to the AFA as early as September 2024, though the FBI initially judged the evidence insufficient to open a criminal case. The current inquiry, which Argentine media say began to take shape during 2025, may also call former officials from President Javier Milei’s administration who had access to sensitive information or supervised AFA operations.

US law enforcement sources, cited in Argentine reporting, indicate that the investigation remains in a fact-finding phase, with prosecutors continuing to collect testimony and banking records. The involvement of the Justice Department’s Bank Integrity Unit signals a focus on potential systemic misuse of the US financial system. The next steps are expected to include further witness interviews—possibly with ex-government figures—and formal requests for information to American financial institutions. For now, the dossier remains a preliminary inquiry, and no individual or entity has been formally accused of wrongdoing.