An Argentine court has ordered former senator Eduardo Kueider’s extradition from Paraguay. The ex-lawmaker, a Peronist turned Libertarian, had been arrested in December while trying to enter the neighbouring country with US$200,000 in undeclared cash.

When asked during a routine check, he could not justify the source of the funds. The sum far exceeds the US$10,000 limit for undeclared cash.

The week after his detention, Argentina’s Upper House voted to expel him.

His secretary, Iara Guinsel Costa, who was with him and also detained on the spot, is also awaiting extradition.

Both had been under house arrest in Paraguay since their detention, accused of attempted currency smuggling. They are suspected of forming an association dedicated to repeatedly carrying out economic and financial operations with the ultimate goal of laundering illicit money. The Paraguayan courts had set preliminary hearings for July 30 and 31.

A judge in Argentina is probing them in a different case, called Securitas. San Isidro federal judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado is investigating dozens of current and former officials accused of receiving bribes from a private security company in exchange for facilitating and supporting public contracts. Although Kueider was originally not part of the case, he was later included due to suspicions that the money from these bribes could have been the starting point for some of his real estate investments.

The extradition process began on Tuesday morning when Paraguayan police arrived at the residence where Kueider and Guinsel Costa were being held. Interpol also participated in the operation.

In his latest public statements, dating back to May, the former senator denied any link between the money found in his vehicle and the Securitas case. “Some things are completely ridiculous,” he wrote on social media. 

“It’s all far-fetched,” wrote Kueider. “It’s as if there is an intention to build a bigger case to justify preventive detention.”

Arroyo Salgado based her investigation on the several trips Kueider made to Paraguay in 2024 and the fact that he had switched documents relating to his apartment expenses into Guinsel Costa’s name, instead of his company Betail S.A.

Kueider was elected to the Senate in 2019 for the Peronist coalition Unión por la Patria, but has consistently voted with the ruling party La Libertad Avanza since it took office. He was one of two Peronist senators to vote for President Javier Milei’s flagship Ley Bases law, earning condemnation from within the party.