Kirchnerism blocked the creation of a commission in Congress to investigate the scandal of the deaths caused by contaminated fentanyl.

The final session of the Chamber of Deputies was about to end. It was a long grind in which the Peronist K-Party bloc achieved the quorum and majorities necessary to serially pass twelve legislative bills and resolutions that undermined Javier Milei's government plan . At midnight, the chamber was filled with feelings of victory and defeat, a dual hangover after twelve hours of discussions. One more controversy remained. PRO deputy Silvana Giudici took the floor to propose approval of a request for information and the creation of an investigative commission on what she called "the Fentanyl scandal." The K-Party cheers turned into shouts of complaints and insults. The quorum had been requested, announced the speaker of the chamber, Martin Menem. Giudici fumed: "Let it be clear, then, that the handling of the fentanyl issue is of no concern to Kirchnerism . The connections between leaders of that bloc and their officials from the previous government clearly made it possible to cover up this situation, which has resulted in more than sixty-eight deaths."

From that moment until today, the death toll from the use of contaminated fentanyl manufactured and distributed by the HLB Pharma Group and its Ramallo laboratory has risen to seventy-six . The courts have not ruled out the possibility that many more people have died following the use of this powerful analgesic, widely used in all kinds of surgeries and as a painkiller for terminally ill patients. This was confirmed yesterday by the judge in charge of the case, Ernesto Kreplak, during an interview with Radio Con Vos: " This has not reached its limit."

Kreplak revealed that, according to his investigation, approximately 45,000 ampoules of this contaminated fentanyl were administered to patients across the country. The figure is monumental.

Clarín obtained documentary evidence demonstrating that the production of contaminated fentanyl could be the fatal outcome of a laboratory that operated for years with impunity, without state oversight or with political complicity. The actual owner of HLB Pharma Group is Ariel García Furfaro , a former prisoner who entered the pharmaceutical business with support from the Kirchner family.

His connection to that field was the current head of Health at the Instituto Patria, Nelson Donato. García Furfaro visited Cristina Kirchner on several occasions when she was free. He won multimillion-dollar bids with municipalities and provinces governed by the Kirchnerite leadership thanks to the work of one of the former president's secretaries, Mariana de Dios . He was also on the verge of securing official representation to sell the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine in Argentina amid the pandemic.

This newspaper was able to confirm that, this week, National Customs removed HLB Pharma Group's CUIT (Tax Identification Number) as a way of prohibiting it from continuing to import materials and machinery.

The company is currently under investigation for importing machinery from China, declaring it in our country at a much lower purchase price than the actual price. This machinery was allegedly intended for the installation of an HLB Pharma headquarters in Paraguay , according to La Nación. The laboratory will never be able to make another purchase abroad.

According to official sources, the DGI (General Directorate of Investigative Journalism) is expected to take the same measure after the controversial laboratory was reported by the current authorities for aggravated tax evasion after confirming that in the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, they avoided paying several million pesos in VAT by allegedly using false invoices.

The new developments impact a company where almost nothing can be guaranteed to have operated according to standards.

This week, the Ministry of Security, headed by Patricia Bullrich, also filed another complaint against HLB Pharma Group because authorities demonstrated that the authorization certificate submitted last year to the National Registry of Chemical Precursors (RENPRE), a crucial step for operating with hazardous chemical substances, was falsified .

The laboratory itself submitted this document to the court, claiming it had been issued by the municipality of San Isidro, the district where HLB Pharma's main headquarters are located. Officials from that municipality responsible for these matters, however, assured Security that the document was never processed. This is a serious irregularity, to which the laboratory's defense team has yet to respond.

ANMAT , the state agency responsible for overseeing the actions of pharmaceutical companies, has recently fined and sanctioned HLB Pharma Group several times for various irregularities. These included manufacturing medications with insufficient guarantees for distribution, and also found violations of hundreds of so-called "best practices" in the production of highly sensitive medicines.

Judge Kreplak stated in the interview with Radio con Vos that it was impossible to determine the traceability of the ampoules containing the contaminated fentanyl . The provinces that purchased multi-million pesos worth of medicine from HLB Pharma are Buenos Aires (whose Health Minister is Nicolás Kreplak, brother of the judge in the case ) and Formosa , owned by Gildo Insfrán, among others. One of the municipalities that generated the most profit for the laboratory was José C. Paz, owned by Mario Ishii , which signed an agreement to purchase material from HLB Pharma to set up a state laboratory in the district.

There are no complaints from any Peronist leader on the matter . However, the mayor of Rosario, Pablo Javkin, filed a complaint in the case because several Rosario residents were affected by fentanyl. Javkin presented documentation linking García Furfaro and Salinas to the Apolo laboratory in his city, which ceased to exist after an explosion that was never fully explained. That laboratory had been linked to the ephedrine business. "They are drug traffickers," Javkin stated in an interview with Infobae.

García Furfaro's political ties are not being investigated by the courts . For now, the investigation is trying to determine how the fentanyl was manufactured and where it was contaminated, and will also seek to establish whether it was fraudulent or negligent.

One of the victims who caused the greatest stir in informed public opinion is Giovanni, a three-month-old baby who received an injection of the improperly manufactured fentanyl at birth due to respiratory complications. The drug worsened his illness: he has remained in intensive care ever since and underwent surgery so he can be fed through a gastric button.

Although the judge in the case indicated that there is no way to analyze the traceability of the fentanyl, Ministry of Health officials stated otherwise in an interview with Clarín . Sources in the pharmaceutical market also confirmed the existence of a so-called "track record," a history that should show where the medications produced by HLB Pharma were shipped from and to.

It took several days for the courts to raid the laboratory's headquarters, as well as its subsidiary, Ramallo . By the time security forces finally arrived at the offices to seize documents, the owners of HLB Pharma had already reported being victims of a strange theft. Of course, the papers tracing the fentanyl were never found.

What the owners of HLB Pharma did attempt to prove in court was that on April 13, they burned 5 kilos of powdered fentanyl because it had expired . They presented records and documents about the process. A notary public even claimed to have witnessed the incident, carried out by companies dedicated to such procedures. The notary public attests to having seen five kilos of powder labeled as fentanyl being burned.

Market sources affirm that the burning of such a delicate substance is always carried out in the presence of ANMAT technicians who can guarantee that the material to be discarded is dangerous medication. This didn't happen. The burning of the fentanyl took place on a curious date: April 13, the same day the court case on the matter began .

The raids on García Furfaro's multiple companies do not help support his defense regarding transparency in his work. The case file shows that when security forces searched the facilities of one of his companies, Epuyén , which manufactures copper cables, they discovered a huge truck belonging to another of the prime suspect's companies in the fentanyl case, the cereal company Tres Arroyos . In that vehicle, they found pallets containing countless medications that shouldn't have been there.

In recent days, García Furfaro filed a written complaint warning the courts that he could be the victim of a plot orchestrated by a former representative of his laboratories, Héctor Andrés Quinteros, whom he accused of attacking his companies. The complaint detailed, as evidence of his hypothesis, that a close associate told him that Quinteros had mounted a "campaign" against him. And, in a separate section of the same document, he asserted that the facilities of the Ramallo laboratory, a production subsidiary of HLB Pharma, located in the town of the same name, could be attacked to harm him.

To support this argument, García Furfaro said that the security guard who looks after the nine-hectare property claimed to have seen a black helicopter flying over the area “even during the last few days,” which makes him think that “using the aforementioned helicopter, some product was thrown onto the property outside the laboratory, to then simulate an ‘accidental discovery’…” which could harm him.

Meanwhile, deaths from contaminated fentanyl are expected to increase. The Justice Department is investigating 110 files of potential fatalities who received the drug to improve their health, not to kill them.