Argentina authorizes corporate espionage

By Charles Newbery

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina 

Argentina’s new intelligence agency has the authority to spy on banks and companies to prevent practices that could affect economic or market stability, authorities said Wednesday.

“Those who have to worry are those who do thousands of things to enrich themselves,” Carlos Gonella, head of the Argentine Attorney General’s Office of Economic Crime and Money Laundering, said on Radio Del Plata.

“No employer need worry if it complies with the rules,” he added.

Gonella and other officials defended the Federal Intelligence Agency, created earlier this year to replace a dissolved unit that the government has said was failing to serve the country.

The government unveiled the new agency’s 408-page doctrine Tuesday, which allows it to spy on banks, companies and financial firms on the pretext of averting runs on bank deposits and the currency, as well as any practices that could cause supply shortages or harm the economy.

The spying will also target any potential terrorist activity or attempts against constitutional order or democratic stability by business, financial, political or military groups, according to the doctrine.

Oscar Parrilli, who took over running the new agency from the now defunct unit, said investigations will focus on companies, not individuals.

Parrilli said, for example, that spies will not “go to the streets or places where dollars are bought or sold, or to a money house,” to uncover illegal currency trading.

“This is not our job,” he said on Radio La Red.

He added that the doctrine of the new agency bars “repressive tasks of criminal investigation or police functions.”

Instead, the agency will analyze data and other information to discover any criminal activity, he said.

“If we see that a crime was possibly committed, we will inform the authorities to take action,” Parrilli said. “The goal is to protect Argentines, not spy on them.”

Business leaders raised concerns about the spying, warning that that agency could step over the justice system in crackdowns on companies.

The ruling party, which has been in power since 2003, has used strong-arm tactics in the past to force companies to lower prices or beef up supplies, even if the firm has to operate at a loss. The government once called a national boycott on Shell’s products after the oil company raised its prices at the pump. After sales plunged, Shell cut its prices back to previous levels.

Threats of prison time also have been raised at executives for price hikes or shortages.

“This is a new sign of authoritarianism by the government,” said Luis Etchevehere, president of the Argentine Rural Society, a leading farm group. “They want to intimidate independent voices through spying,” he told La Nacion newspaper of the new agency’s doctrine.