On the day Javier Milei won the 2023 election, he climbed on the stage and thanked Santiago Caputo, describing him as the “true architect” of his presidential campaign. The name of the top presidential advisor immediately attracted attention, but the surname was well-known – he was another member of a family which has been close to power for decades.
Up until then, Santiago the spin doctor was unknown to the broader public. But he was not the only one in the Caputo clan to join the new government – Luis “Toto” Caputo was appointed Economy minister and over the last year, the former JP Morgan trader has managed to consolidate a relationship of maximum confidence with President Milei, the leader of La Libertad Avanza.
Generation after generation, the surname has returned, always linked to the business world via Nicolás ‘Nicky’ Caputo, and now related to power, as in the 2015-2019 Mauricio Macri administration. This time, there is a double dose.
Santiago’s influence in government is surprising. Although holding no official post and invoicing the state as a self-employed worker, he intervenes in practically every area. A short while ago, Macri went so far as to say that the President “has ceded to him an almost absolute control of government.”
Macri’s words reverberated. The ex-president was referring to Santiago after a personal meeting with the spin doctor. Furthermore, he knows the whole family very closely: Toto was finance minister during his government and Nicolás, or “Nicky,” is one of his best friends.
Santiago, Toto and Nicky are not the only well-known figures in the Caputo clan. A few weeks ago, reports started to circulate that Francisco, one of the presidential advisor’s three siblings, would be collaborating with the government on energy. Flavio and Rossana, the owners of “Caputo Hermanos,” the company under investigation in a case probing the 2022 assassination attempt against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, could also be added.
The genealogical tree of the Caputos also includes people no longer alive, but who were key to public construction of the family surname – Claudio, Santiago’s father, kept a low profile despite having held an important post as president of the College of City Notaries; going back to the 1980s, when Dante Caputo was appointed Foreign minister by Raúl Alfonsín, would also be productive.
It is true that not all of the Caputos are directly related. Nicolás Caputo Lauría, the grandfather of Toto and Nicky, was the only Caputo with a public profile in the middle of the 20th century. Toto and Nicky are cousins of one other and of Claudio, making them second uncles of Milei’s spin doctor. Tracing the lineage of Dante is a bit harder. Within the clan they recognise: “We’re distant relatives but that’s another line.”
Versions about how close the relatives all are change according to who is telling the story. But in any case, it is hard to imagine that there was any large distance between all of them. When business dealings, social contacts and friendships are observed, it is easy to note that all the Caputos have always moved in the same circles.
Nicolás Caputo Lauría: the first
Nicolás Caputo Lauría was the grandfather of Toto and Nicky and the first Caputo on record for kicking off the family fortune with “Nicolás Caputo Sociedad Anónima de Edificación,” a company dedicated to the construction of public works and private buildings which he founded in 1938.
Born in 1890 in Potenza, the capital of the Italian province of Basilicata, he emigrated to Argentina where he married a woman named Francisca Oliveto and had three sons: Luis Nicolás (the father of Toto), Jorge Octavio (the father of Nicky) and Rodolfo Julio, who all joined the company’s board of directors in the 1940s. In 1955, the firm began quoting its shares on the Bolsa stock exchange.
Nicolás ‘Nicky’ Caputo: Macri’s “soulmate”
For years before his second nephew erupted out onto the public agenda, Nicky was presented by the media as the family’s best-known figure. The businessman became the visible face of the construction company that was founded by his grandfather and consolidated by his grandfather.
Nicky and Mauricio Macri got to know each other at the Colegio Cardenal Newman school. They’ve known each other since they were six and the ex-president described the businessman as his “soulmate.” With the rise to power of Macri’s PRO party, all eyes centred on their link because of the contracts signed between Caputo’s construction firm and the state.
According to a report by the City Auditor-General, picked up by an article in Letra P, following the arrival of Mauricio Macri to run City Hall, one of Caputo’s companíes (SES SA) obtained over a billion (1,023 million) pesos in public works contracts between 2008 and 2015.
The close links with Macri also led to Nicky being named one of PRO’s vice-presidents. After the Juntos por el Cambio triumph in 2015, he was named consul in Singapore.
Grupo Caputo, headed by Nicky, operates in construction, industry and energy via companies like Caputo SA, SES SA, Mirgor (Tierra del Fuego electronics) and Sadesa. In 2020 he occupied 34th place in the Forbes ranking of Argentina’s richest businessmen.
Luis ‘Toto’ Caputo: libertarian ‘rock star’
Current Economy Minister Luis Caputo is Nicky’s cousin. ‘Toto’ served in the Macri government – he was Finance secretary between 2015 and 2017, Finance minister between 2017 and 2018, and then Central Bank governor. His fame as a trader led then-Cabinet chief Marcos Peña to baptise him “the Messi of finance.”
Two issues from the Macri era hang over him. He was one of those responsible for the US$44-billion credit programme (initially US$57 billion) which the International Monetary Fund granted Argentina. He also showed up on holiday in Ipanema, Brazil, in 2018, on the eve of a currency crisis which would end up ejecting him from the Central Bank helm.
Toto was schooled at the Colegio La Salle and studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires. Within the private sector, he worked for many years as the trading chief for JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. When he left the Central Bank, he returned to private activity, founding the Anker Latinoamericana consultancy.
Last December he returned to public office when, after months of uncertainty as to who would be in charge of the economic portfolio, Milei announced his appointment to head the ministry. Those who know the minister repeat that over the course of time he has become a fervent defender of the President. Milei does not stint on praise, describing him as a “rock star” and a “crack.”
Flavio Caputo: in court and the Official Gazette
The Country Club Newman is inhabited, according to Noticias magazine, by Nicky, Toto and one of the latter’s five siblings: Flavio. Another rendezvous point for them is the Cumelén country club in Villa La Angostura (Neuquén), where ex-president Macri tends to spend his summers.
Flavio is involved in the world of construction but his name had never circulated in the press until the attempted assassination of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2022. A journalistic investigation revealed that his company, Caputo Hermanos, had invoiced a multi-million sum to Jonathan Morel, the youngster heading Revolución Federal, a group of agitators who organised demonstrations against Kirchnerism for months on end.
The court investigation into Revolución Federal proceeds in a different file to the attempted magnicide and there another of Toto’s siblings appears – Flavia, the woman who had been the person making the contact with Morel. The company’s explanation is always that they contracted the young man to manufacture furniture. For the ex-president’s lawyers, this is a key piece of information for tracing the financing of these groups.
Last December, when Toto took on the economy portfolio, Flavio became the president of the Anker Latinoamericana consultancy’s board of directors. The position of alternate director went to Alexis Hoffman, an economist and financial advisor who some years ago created a company together with veteran Radical wheeler-dealer Enrique ‘El Coti’ Nosiglia and current Health Minister Mario Iván Lugones, the father of Rodrigo Lugones, a political consultant and a great friend of Santiago Caputo.
Last July brought the latest news about Flavio. According to Perfil, the businessman, together with another of his brothers, Hugo, launched a US$70-million real-estate enterprise in the Ezeiza area. The project is named “La Tercera” and seeks to construct a gated community inspired by the national football team.
Santiago Caputo: star spin doctor
Santiago’s name began to circulate among journalists with the 2023 presidential campaign in full swing. Back then, when consulted about his role, the replies were most ambiguous, only repeating that he was great friends with Javier Milei.
For some reason, nobody wanted to come clean with the young consultant being in charge of electoral strategy. And while recognising that Santiago was related to the other Caputos, they insisted that he had practically no links with the rest of the clan. That version changed the same day Milei won and thanked Santiago, whom he defined as the “architect” of his campaign (he also congratulated him on the birth of his second baby with his economist wife Ángeles María Garbers Adamoli).
Santiago is the second nephew of Nicky, Toto and Flavio. As a youngster he studied engineering and then political science at the University of Buenos Aires but never graduated. In 2010 an acquaintance introduced him to the consultancy world and he joined the team of top Ecuadorean spin doctor Jaime Durán Barba, where he worked for several years with his friend Rodrigo Lugones, the founder of the Move Group consultancy firm.
At the Colegio Manuel Belgrano he got to know future libertarian lawmaker Ramiro Marra and Eugenio Cassielles, who presented him in 2021 to Milei. According to sources, they were instant friends. The confidence is such that Santiago forms part of the President’s “iron triangle” with sister Karina Milei.
From the Move Group, apart from Santiago, Guillermo Garat, current vice-president of YPF state oil company’s “Relaciones Institucionales, Comunicación y Marketplace” department, and Diego “Derek” Hampton, linked to Anses social security administration, have key roles in government.
Around Santiago, at least during the campaign, they repeated that the consultant’s family has almost no links with the branches of Nicky and Toto. Nevertheless, there is very close contact – apart from the business partnerships of Hoffmann and Lugones with the Caputos, links with Macri also appear in his father’s life.
Claudio Caputo Peña: anonymous influence
In 2017, Noticias magazine published a cover story on the Caputos, presenting Santiago’s father as “Claudio, the unknown Caputo” and making no mention of his son. It was logical enough, there were still several years to go before the political consultant had any kind of protagonism.
Claudio, who died in June, 2023, in the midst of the campaign, was the cousin of Nicky and Toto. Although he cultivated a very low profile, he had influence as the president of the College of Notaries of Buenos Aires City. According to reports, the support of his friend, mentor and predecessor, José María Fernández Ferrari, was the key to him reaching this position. Fernández Ferrari is Nicky’s best friend and headed the blind trust which administered ex-president Macri’s fortune during his presidency.
Claudio was married to María Spinetto Bory and, apart from Santiago, had three other children: Francisco, Ezequiel and Malena.
Francisco Caputo: coaching and money
In the last few weeks word has spread of another Caputo walking the corridors of power in the Casa Rosada: Francisco. Around the presidential advisor they explain that his registered entries into Government House are only visits to see his brother.
Nevertheless, as published by La Nación, Francisco already has concrete tasks in government – he was allegedly in charge of recruiting Tristán Socas, Federico Márquez and Diego Zabala, who have just become authorities in the Enarsa state energy company. The movement was interpreted as one more advance for Santiago in the energy area.
Francisco is an ontological coach. A 2019 interview with him is published in YouTube referring to one of his main topics – money and how people must work on building up their self-confidence to get it.
Dante Caputo: Alfonsín’s foreign minister
In the Caputo family tree appears another person previously linked to power: Dante Caputo, (1943-2018), the man chosen by Raúl Alfonsín to head the Foreign Ministry upon the return of democracy in 1983.
Sources close to Santiago Caputo explain that he comes from “another branch” of the family.
Dante was married to the Frenchwoman Anne Morel, whom he got to know in Paris when studying at the Sorbonne. They had three children: Nicolás, Lionel and Paola, who was a municipal councillor for Juntos por el Cambio in Vicente López.
Besides his time in the Foreign Ministry, he formed part of the Fernando de la Rúa administration as its Science, Technology and Productive Innovation secretary. Before that he served two terms in Congress where he fiercely opposed the policies of Carlos Menem. He was also the Speaker of the 1988-1999 United Nations General Assembly.
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