In a menacing twist in the Lago Escondido case , the Buenos Aires Federal Court indicted Ricardo Nissen , former head of the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) during Alberto Fernández 's presidential administration, for abuse of authority after investigating Hidden Lake SA, the company of British tycoon Joe Lewis.

According to various Argentine media outlets, the court ruling coincides with a secret agreement by the Milei administration to settle the lawsuit seeking to annul the purchase of 12,000 hectares of Patagonian land . This scheme of impunity is becoming entrenched while the Supreme Court remains unresolved regarding public access to the lake.

British billionaire Joe Lewis leaving the Manhattan federal court in 2023

The Second Chamber of the Federal Court of Appeals in Buenos Aires has triggered a new political and judicial earthquake by indicting Ricardo Nissen, former Inspector General of Justice, for abuse of authority. The charge is based on resolutions from 2022 and 2023 in which Nissen filed requests with the Commercial Court to declare Hidden Lake SA, Joe Lewis's company that owns the ranch in the Lago Escondido area of Río Negro province, null and void and to place it under judicial intervention .

This prosecution is the result of a judicial persecution that saw Nissen acquitted four times by two different federal judges (Sebastián Casanello and Daniel Rafecas), before the Federal Court of Appeals overturned those decisions and proceeded with the current charges. The ruling was approved with the votes of Judges Martín Irurzun and Eduardo Farah, and the dissenting vote of Roberto Boico .

A Critical Omissions-Based Process

Irurzun's dissenting opinion argues that the IGJ applied a criterion reserved for companies suspected of fraud based on a false premise, claiming that the 2005 ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Río Negro was not final and did not mandate public access to the lake. Farah, for his part, described the case as extraordinary and unlike any previous institutional precedent.

However, the court omitted from its ruling the four grounds presented by the IGJ for the judicial intervention of Hidden Lake: the company had no real business activity; its expenses were covered by offshore companies in the Caribbean never registered in Argentina; there was a "private army" that prevented public access to the lake; and its facilities had been used for political receptions, including the famous October 2022 trip of judges, prosecutors and executives of the Clarín Group .

Silent and Opaque Challenge

Nissen's prosecution cannot be viewed in isolation. It occurred simultaneously with another event of equal magnitude: the Milei administration agreed with Lewis and Hidden Lake's representatives to end the legal action that the State itself had initiated in 2023 to annul the purchase of the Patagonian lands. That action had been promoted by the Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Wado de Pedro, based on opinions from the Office of Administrative Investigations and the Office of the Attorney General of the Treasury .

Lewis's maneuver to acquire 12,000 hectares in a border security zone in 1996 had been documented as fraudulent, using front men and shell companies to circumvent the legal prohibition. The agreement that closed this action by the State was signed during the court recess in January 2026 and ratified on the 28th of that month, with the backing of the Ministry of the Interior, headed by Diego Santilli. The file, which until then had been public, disappeared from the Judiciary's intranet and access to it is now restricted.

The Connection of "The Huemules"

The connection between these two aspects of the case is no coincidence. Justice Minister Juan Bautista Mahiques and Appeals Court Judge Carlos Mahiques are part of the "Lawfare Huemules" network . Both were on that trip to Lewis's ranch; Carlos was the one who, in 2021, dismissed the criminal case against Lewis due to the statute of limitations . Now, while the Executive branch closes the civil route with a grim settlement, the Federal Court is moving forward against the official who dared to investigate the company.

The case concerning public access to Lago Escondido (the Tacuifí road), whose authorization has been ordered and revoked on multiple occasions, still awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court of Justice, where an extraordinary appeal filed by former legislator Magdalena Odarda has remained unresolved for over two years. The scheme of impunity surrounding Joe Lewis and his lands in Patagonia is becoming entrenched, while the justice system seems to target those who seek transparency and the rule of law .